MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. — Shania Twain was every bit the pop-country diva at her sold-out show at Shoreline Amphitheatre on Friday night, regaling an excited audience with a parade of singalong hits. But nearly as impressive was how well the songs from her new album, Queen of Me, fit in alongside the classics.

Throughout, Twain was an entertaining ringleader, the glittering (quite literally) diamond and a friendly host, offering hugs and photo opportunities to numerous fans throughout the nearly two-hour performance.

But she began the show in secret, hiding in plain sight at a seat in the lower bowl at Shoreline, wearing a black coat and large bedazzled sunglasses. Her band, which included two singers, who were also dancers and actors, appeared on stage and kicked into Queen of Me rock song “Waking Up Dreaming.” Twain wasn’t among them but made herself known with a “whoop” into her sparkly microphone. She stood up, sang to the fans around her and then walked along the divide between the lower and upper bowl.

Before the second song, pop-rock number “Up!” the large video screen at the back of the stage showed an animated rocket waiting to launch, with Twain on board. The star appeared at the upper level of the two-tiered stage just in time for the song to launch, with the audience loudly singing along. The visuals played a key role throughout the show, telling a story about Twain crash-landing in an alien world (which was also California and Mountain View; props to the visual effects team for changing it up each night) with saloons and horses and… aliens. It was a fun theme to go with and moved the narrative of the show along without stagnating.

After that first song, Twain ditched the coat for an outfit I’ll call “Florence Welch becomes a professional figure skater.” No matter on which side of pop or country her songs lay, she and her band delivered them masterfully, with musical talent and in an entertaining fashion, sometimes even with shots of comedy. The ones heavier on twang included “Don’t Be Stupid (You Know I Love You)”  and”Any Man of Mine,” which included some choreographed line dancing with Twain and her two male dancers.

Honky tonk tunes “Whose Bed Have Your Boots Been Under?” and “Honey, I’m Home” where show-stoppers. On the former, Twain’s fiddler pretended to duck as a horse leapt “over” him on the screen, and was then chased down a street by a little green man.

On the pop side of the performance was “I’m Gonna Getcha Good!” Coming early in the set, the song was also a highlight for the shiny chrome motorcycle shaped liked a stallion (its wheels spun!) that Shania Twain mounted and performed on. New song “Giddy Up!” was also memorable.

Between those two extremes came “You’re Still the One.” Twain sat on a stool, strumming her guitar as the crowd sang along, before the band kicked in. By the mid-point of the song, she started letting the crowd take over for her.

“I think this is the sexiest song I’ve ever written,” Twain said of “Roll Me on the River,” a mid tempo hard rocker during which she fingerpicked a melody on her guitar.

New tune “Pretty Liar” had a ’50s doo-wop melody underneath its modern veneer.

Although she didn’t chit-chat with the crowd, per se, Twain worked overtime on personal connections. Two-thirds of the way through the show, she brought out a dozen or so fans onto the stage to watch her perform ballad “From This Moment On.” The fans stood around bar tables that had been carried onto the stage as well. Before the song, Twain had a photographer get a photo with each group.

Shortly after that, she invited a 4-year-old boy named Nathan, clad in a cowboy hat, and serenaded him with a song. Then a man named Ritch who’d entered a contest by sending in a message about why he was a fan (this was tied to the next song, “Number One”). Ritch, who took his time because he was all the way in the lawn, brought a friend. Everyone got multiple photos with Twain. After Ritch, Twain spotted a baby nearby, and the child, younger than a year old, was passed up to her, looking nonplussed.

For as much as all these fan interactions slowed the pace of the show, it was intriguing to see just how far Shania Twain would go (no, she didn’t shake hands with everyone at Shoreline).

The only things that didn’t go swimmingly during the performance were the muddied vocals during “Inhale/Exhale Air,” and a medley of “Nah!,” “She’s Not Just a Pretty Face,” “Waiter! Bring Me Water!,” “When” and “Thank You Baby! (for Makin’ Someday Come So Soon)” that felt a bit rushed and would have been better had Twain picked a couple of those songs to play in full.

Still, it was important to her; she introduced it as a “tribute to the past.” “When” was the best of the bunch with a fun ’90s-style guitar solo.

Shania Twain blasted through the rest of the show, ending the main set with the title track to the new album, before returning to the stage for the biggest two crowd-pleasers, “That Don’t Impress Me Much” and “Man! I Feel Like A Woman!”

Iowa native Hailey Whitters opened the show with an all-too-brief six-song set that consisted of songs from her 2021 album Raised, and its terrific 2020 predecessor, The Dream. Wearing a frilly pink dress and white boots, she was backed by a strong quartet on songs like the breezy “Plain Jane,” fiddle-tinged “Fillin’ My Cup” and the fun “tie ‘er down.”

Hailey Whitters paced back and forth with an acoustic guitar strapped behind her back on the poppy “How Far Can It Go?” and the dramatic, swelling “The Neon.” She also got emotional talking about her first song on the radio, “Heartland,” which would open the door to her eventually being able to tour with Shania Twain.

There was a massive traffic backup leading to the amphitheater that clogged freeway offramp and city streets lead; the only unpleasant part of the evening. Anyone arriving in Mountain View around 6 p.m., an hour before the advertised show start, had another hour to wait in standstill traffic. Luckily, the show started late.

Follow editor Roman Gokhman at Twitter.com/RomiTheWriter. Follow photographer Derek Fisher at Instagram.com/dfishswish.