In an interlude of their album Live at First Congregational Church, El Kempner of Palehound banters with the crowd. “I’m on tour with Adrianne right now, and it’s been, ‘wow.’ I don’t even have words.” They continue, “Guys, her brain is different.” And it’s that difference that helps Adrianne Lenker stand out among folk artists, or other truth-tellers: she seems to be tapped into a timeless frequency of the universe, pulling songs from the ether that had been circling our brains all along.
One of the best reviews I’ve heard of Lenker’s latest Bright Future comes from a friend who noted that songs like “Sadness As A Gift,” “No Machine,” and “Donut Seam” sound like they’ll be canonized in the history of music among the great ballads and standards. Lenker’s not far away from creating a legacy like say, Lucinda Williams, her idol. And her growing cult audience knows it. Singing along to “anything” at one of her concerts feels about as spiritual as you can get in the secular world.
Coming back down to earth, Adrianne Lenker headlined two sold-out shows at Union Transfer this week, November 26th and 27th with opener Suzanne Vallie. Fans welcomed her on Monday night with some small trinket gifts and a bouquet of flowers as she broke into “Zombie Girl” from 2020’s songs. Positioned in the middle of the stage on an antique cane chair, Lenker sat with her left foot elevated to prop up her guitar. Attached to her microphone was a bright yellow plushie flower, and on a stool to her left was a cup of tea. This was all I was expecting, having seen Lenker solo in 2021. But this time around she was joined by Bright Future collaborators Josefin Runsteen on violin and Nick Hakim on piano and vocals.
In Lenker’s “Bright Future,” the crowd is always pleasant. Though packed like sardines in Union Transfer, they were patient and kind. And prone to fainting, I might add, as we heard three concert-goers go down during the course of the evening. Oh, and the crowd also “sounds so good” according to Lenker herself. Singing along felt mandatory when the band played “Vampire Empire,” originally debuted as a Big Thief single, and “anything.”
Besides the sing-a-longs, there were countless reasons to have seen this show live and in-person, like to witness a tactile and heavy-strummed solo version of Big Thief’s “Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe in You,” an unrelentingly discordant guitar solo on “Ruined,” blowing raspberries to create warbling noise on “No Machine,” a happy birthday tribute to an individual named Lunchbox, and Lenker’s own tuning observations, namely how tuning in real time is like driving to your destination instead of flying.
The Big Thief song “Spud Infinity” made a surprise appearance in Lenker’s solo encore, along with a new one called “Incomprehensible” that spoke to her desire to exist outside an aging body. To a fan, it seems Lenker has already mastered that goal, appearing to transcend the physical realm with her music.
Opener Suzanne Vallie shared songs from her intimate and pastoral 2020 album Love Lives Where Rules Die.
