Lady Antebellum on Wednesday, March 10, 2010 at the Ryman Autitorium in Nashville. Photo courtesy of The Greenroom.

Just two years ago, Lady Antebellum was on the road for the first time on a major tour, opening shows for Martina McBride. Last year, the group played a bundle of stadiums on the Kenny Chesney summer tour, and Lady A is currently opening arena dates for Tim McGraw.

Last week, the group upped the ante a little more, taking top billing on a pair of sold-out shows at Nashville’s historic Ryman Auditorium. Playing in the band’s hometown was part of the attraction for Lady A, but it was also an attempt to test the water and see if the group could deliver a strong enough set to warrant a full headlining tour. The trio — Charles Kelley, Hillary Scott and Dave Haywood — has gone from playing about 25 minutes per show on Kenny’s tour to doing a full hour opening for Tim.

“Our dream is to become a headlining act,” Charles says. “That’s the goal and we really needed this Tim McGraw tour honestly just to have a longer set, to be in that big setting and to allow ourselves to have that longer set.”

Closing a show requires even more time on stage, and the Ryman dates put Lady A to the test. They filled out the show with five hits of their own — “Love Don’t Live Here,” “Lookin’ For A Good Time,” “I Run To You,” “Need You Now” and “American Honey” — and they were able to expand the familiarity quotient with an acoustic version of Luke Bryan’s “Do I” (co-written by Charles and Dave) plus covers of the Hank Williams hit “Lost Highway” and Tom Petty’s single “Mary Jane’s Last Dance.”

Still, the band thinks it needs just a little more to make fans feel like they got their money’s worth for a full show.

“I don’t think you can really headline until you have enough hits under your belt,” Charles says. “If we can get one or two [more] radio songs out there, whether they’re No. 1 or not — just some more material, you know — I think back when we first started and we’d have headline shows of an hour and 15 minutes and you got one song. It’s exhausting. You’re tryin’ to pace out where you’re gonna play that hit. You go the whole show, and when you finally play the hit [at the end], everybody [goes], ‘Oh, that’s right. That’s them.’ And you’re like, ‘ See you guys later!’”

Lady A isn’t sure when the headlining will begin seriously, though the stated goal of having one or two more successful singles would put them on track to take the reins on a tour around the end of the year.

They’re looking at “possibly doing some stuff in the fall,” Charles says.

In the meantime, the band’s next round of dates with Tim comes with a four-show swing through Canada starting Thursday in Vancouver.

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