It’s hard to sell out a mid-week show. Alice Phoebe Lou did just that. With only three shows remaining on her completely sold-out North American tour, the South African-born, Berlin-based singer-songwriter brought a full band to Nashville for the first time. Having reviewed her surprise second album of 2021, Child’s Play, and found myself resonating with her 2023 album Shelter more and more with each passing day, this one felt predestined.
Before the woman herself took the stage, though, we were treated to a phenomenal solo set from Sam Burton. The Utah native took the stage with just an acoustic guitar, stepping over to the Wurlitzer for only a brief single song. He treated the audience to a phenomenal cover of Tim Hardin’s “If I Were A Carpenter,” as well as excellent solo renditions of his work (most notably “Maria” and “I Don’t Blame You”) but the best moments were those moments of banter between the songs. It’s not that the songs weren’t great – they were – but when an artist takes cues from the likes of Bob Dylan and Orville Peck, it’s the humanizing moments between songs that ground the audience in the reality that even when an artist can weave lyrics together as Sam Burton can, they’re also fallible human beings.
The first moment came towards the end of his opening song. He flubbed a chord change, laughed it off, finished the song, and then remarked, “That was a… brain fart.” When he stepped over to the Wurlitzer for that single song, he told the crowd, “I don’t really play the piano very well.” Towards the end of his set, he checked with stage management to make sure he wasn’t going over his time. When they said he had twenty more minutes, he seemed shocked.
“I have twenty minutes? I have twenty more minutes? I’m not gonna go that long, I’m sorry. I have two more songs for you. … That’s funny because that means I’ve been underplaying the entire tour. Oh well.” – Sam Burton
Though he did end up taking half of those twenty minutes, it was the humanization of an artist that audiences always appreciate. My first real experience with that was Billie Joe Armstrong forgetting the lyrics to “She’s A Rebel” during Green Day’s 2010 Lollapalooza set. There are compilations everywhere of Alex Turner from Arctic Monkeys being the most awkward person ever, even on stage. Check one of his more famous flubs out below. My whole point here is this: we often get wrapped up in the myth of the artist, particularly when they write and perform as well as Alice Phoebe Lou or Sam Burton. To have these moments that ground us in our collective humanity is what makes live music so special. Kudos, Sam Burton.
When Alice Phoebe Lou took the stage, though, the night went from great to spectacular. Playing her first two songs of the set solo – “Halo” and “Shine” from Shelter – she established both the audience’s respect level (you could hear a pin drop in those quiet moments mid-song) and her quality of performance. When a singer has control of their voice in the way that Alice Phoebe Lou does and then pairs that with the spatial awareness to use distance from the microphone to control dynamics, it’s apparent that they know exactly what they’re doing. Between those two songs, Alice explained to us that she and the band had not gotten much sleep the night before and were a bit lacking in energy.
“But I can feel that you guys are all gonna give me the energy that I need.” – Alice Phoebe Lou
And then the band came out. The first full band song was “Open My Door,” a song that is constantly in my head and staking a claim for the top spot on my list of songs released in 2023. From there, Alice Phoebe Lou performed a setlist of mostly songs from the last four years of her career, with a quick stop in the middle to cover Gordon Lightfoot’s “Early Morning Rain” with Sam Burton and play a couple more solo songs (in our case, “Let Me” from Child’s Play and “Velvet Mood” from Glow) before playing with the full band for the rest of the set. The intensity of the lyrics was matched by the intensity of the stage lights, and there was a point early in the set where her bassist played the intro riff for Iron Maiden’s “Phantom of the Opera” while they were trying to figure out an issue with the aforementioned Wurlitzer.
The midsection of the set was when the emotions came pouring out of most of the crowd. The woman in front of me was fanning away tears during “Lover / / Over the Moon.” I cried while covering a show for the second time this month during “Lately.” Someone passed out at the beginning of “Silly,” and Alice kindly stopped the set to make sure she was ok and asked for an update from security after the show. These tracks are some of the most cathartic for Nashville, and I’m willing to bet it’s more than just us. Alice Phoebe Lou just has that effect on people.
The most energy somehow came at the end of the set, when Alice and her band ran through high-energy tracks “Lose My Head,” “Witches,” and “Dirty Mouth” to round out the show. To make that much of a final energetic push to end the set while sleep-deprived is a gamble, and they crushed it. The crowd was dancing, the lights were spinning, the band was on one, and in the middle of all of it was the woman herself. Alice Phoebe Lou has arrived and is still rising. Do yourself a favor and bless your ears today with any of the songs mentioned here (and also “Shelter”).
If you were lucky enough to see Alice Phoebe Lou on this tour, let us know your thoughts! Be sure to follow her and Sam on Instagram to keep up with their careers. As always, go listen to the music as well, however you can.
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