Music / Folk/country
Review: Gretchen Peters, St George’s
Spring is the symbol of revival, resurgence and new hopes. On this mild evening, sun rays softly heat the facade of St George’s church. Gretchen Peters comes back to Bristol to present her new album Dancing with the Beast, after her critically-acclaimed Blackbirds, released three years earlier. The 2016 election and the feminist movements which followed fuelled Peters’ imagination. Female characters are depicted, interpreted, celebrated and praised. And just like the spring, the music is a wistful reflection on the past tinted with hopes of new beginnings.
The set opens with Arguing with Ghosts, also the first song on the new album. Immediately, the venue complements the music to highest quality (if perfection exists then it must resemble Gretchen Peters and band performing at St George’s). Every string that is picked or strummed softly resonates and then melts into an invisible velvety cushion. “I get lost in my hometown”, are the opening words of this disturbingly beautiful song. Melancholia and confusion emanate from it but at the same time, it sounds inspiring to be lost without a clear direction. Peters’ words betray a bittersweet relationship with pretty much everything. There is always darkness in light and vice versa and this reflects in her lyrics.
Accompanied by a top-notch band and the lovely soothing vocals of support act Kim Richey on some numbers, Peters continues to perform new compositions such as The Boy from Rye, broaching the subject of adolescent insecurities, when a girl is not only a subject anymore but can become an object as well. Again, the attentive (and the quietest) audience is showed Peters’ crafty skills in song-writing. Lowlands, written after the 2016 election, breathes of overcast pessimism. The low mood is enhanced by the repetitive notes on the piano which brings another layer of nostalgia. Interestingly, the song doesn’t have a chorus, as if there wasn’t any lifebuoy to hold onto.
is needed now More than ever
She comes back and stands in front of the stage (lucky first row) for an unplugged version of Love That Makes a Cup of Tea, a splendid ballad influenced by a dream that she had of her late mother telling her that love can reside in the kind gestures of daily life. This concludes an evening of raw emotions and as the crowd vacate the venue with heads full of images, a spring-like hopefulness flutters in the air.
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