Friday night I had the privilege of attending Alice Pheobe Lou’s first concert in Nashville, at the City Winery Lounge, located just above a J. Howell concert happening at the same time in the main hall. As she walks out on stage she jokes that we’re all standing in a venue that’s normally filled with table seating, but there were just too many of us at the sold-out show. There was chatter amongst the audience, questioning “Should we sit down?” Personally, I was really happy when the audience collectively began to sit on the floor, because I wasn’t looking forward to standing in platform Doc Martins for the next hour and a half.

This was actually the first time Alice Pheobe Lou had ever been to Music City. She was also playing without her full band, it was just an acoustic set with Lou and her guitar. The guitar she played, she’d bought earlier that day from Carter’s vintage guitars. Lou admitted that she’d spent more than she’d bargained for on the instrument, but from now on she’d have a piece of Nashville wherever she goes.

For a while, I couldn’t place her accent, but that made sense when I learned she’s a South African who’s lived in Berlin for a long time now. She even spoke in German to someone in the crowd when she shouted out that she’d seen her busk in Berlin.

Lou’s performance was absolutely stunning, I felt lucky to get to see her perform an intimate acoustic set. Her voice was just as perfect as it is in the studio versions of her songs, and everyone listened intently to her every word. Her voice is unique and filled with stylistic flair, and she has a big range. 

She performed some songs from Glow, her most recent album, including“Velvet Mood”, “Lover // Over the Moon”, and “Dirty Mouth”. She also played some songs off of the Paper Castles album which included “Something Holy”. Occasionally switching between her acoustic and electric guitar, she played her hit single “Witches”, considering this song was probably my first introduction to her music it was exciting to see it performed live.

One song that stood out to me during her set was “Touch”. She described writing it in the midst of the pandemic when she was feeling touch-starved. 

After her wonderful performance, I would say nearly everyone in the audience lined up to meet her and purchase some merch. I was just a few places away when she announced that she was “all sold out”! I made it home with some pictures and free stickers. Looks like I’ll have to catch her the next time she’s in Nashville, it would be awesome to see her play with a full band.

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