This evening’s performance at Lincolnshire’s premier Americana Music venue, the Town Hall, Kirton in Lindsey, saw the return of last year’s headline act for the (THL) Festival, Sara Petite, supported by the same incredible musicians that made up her band that day, Joe Coombs on lead guitar, Scott Warman on electric and double bass, and Jamie Dawson drums. An indication of Petite’s success at last year’s festival could be gauged by the local media interest on her return to the area with Ray Burgess, DJ on ‘Nashville Worldwide’ and ‘Siren Radio’ taking the opportunity before the concert to conduct an interview to be aired on his shows for both stations.
Interview completed Petite took to the stage initial on her own, opening the first half of the evening’s set with two wonderful solo acoustic tracks both originally from her 2013 album ‘Circus Comes To Town’, starting with the title track followed by the album opener ‘Perfume’. This marked a distinct change to last year’s show, as neither of these songs featured, delivering an early indication to the advantages of being the sole act and able to play your full set, allowing Petite to perform songs from her burgeoning back catalogue. By the third track Petite was joined on stage by three of the finest musicians currently on the UK Americana scene and they quickly got the room rocking with two numbers from last year’s release ‘The Empress’, with the anthemic ‘God Save The Queen‘, and the country rock of ‘That Was You And Me’. It’s clear from very early on that Petite is on good form, and in good voice, quickly connecting with the audience, suggesting a greater level of energy and confidence than I remember from last year, possibly another advantage of not having to share the stage or being last to perform.
Halfway through the first set, the band retreated to the back of the stage to allow Petite and her acoustic guitar the spotlight for three more fabulous solo numbers starting with ‘Someday I’m Gonna Fly’ from her 2013 album. This was followed by a new and as yet unrecorded song entitled ‘She Runs With The Wolves’ which went down a storm with the local congregation before rounding this trio of acoustic numbers off with the title track to Petite’s 2021 album release ‘Rare Bird’. Reunited with the band the tempo went up a few notches, with Coombs giving everyone a taste of his repertoire with a fiery guitar solo on ‘Le Petit Saboteur’ and some delightful slide playing on the crowd favourite ‘Scars’. There’s still time for another track that didn’t make last year’s show with the title track to the 2017 release ‘Road Less Travelled’ before ‘The Misfits’, already the thirteenth track of the evening, closed the first set.
The second half started in the same vein as the first with Petite returning to the stage on her own, acoustic guitar in hand, to perform the first of four songs that first appeared on her 2008 album ‘Lead The Parade’ with the heart rendering ‘Heaven Bound’ followed by ‘Moonshine’ and the title song which featured another breathtaking guitar solo from Coombs. The raucous response that followed each number was testimony to the sense of joy that was reverberating around the hall, a joy that appeared to be mirrored on stage with Petite engaging with the audience between songs, her accent, though suggesting to the uninitiated an Appalachian mountain background, is born from a west coast upbringing, originally Washington State and more recently San Diego.
The set continued with the exquisite ‘Feeling Like An Angel’, the opening track from ‘Rare Bird’, that just slowed everything down enough to let everyone catch their breath before Petite and the band put the pedal to the metal, initially with the rocking ‘Bringing Down The Neighbourhood’ underpinned by the exemplary rhythm section of Warman and Dawson who throughout the whole show had delivered the perfect foundation and foil for Petite’s broad musical repertoire. The show-stopping ‘Crash Boom Bang’, on which Coombs delivered another mouthwatering slide guitar solo, brought the second half to a close but the vociferous response from the audience was never going to let the evening’s proceedings end just yet and after a few minutes Petite and band reconvened for a sublime rendition of ‘Good 2 Be Me’, another track from 2017’s ‘Road Less Travelled’, and its deliberate nod to the late great Tom Petty.
During the last couple of years Petite has become a much more regular performer on this side of the Atlantic and with the feedback from previous nights on this tour mirroring tonight’s performance one can’t help but feel that a much deserved major breakthrough is just around the corner.
Excellent review Graeme.
I hosted her twice in Beverley & Filey and thet were both terrific shows.
Glad you enjoyed the review Chris, and great to hear the Beverley and Filey shows were, unsurprisingly, terrific as well. It’s brilliant that the east side of the country, Yorkshire, Lincolnshire as well as the midlands are putting on such great gigs which is very much down to people like yourself. So on behalf of all of us in this neck of the woods, a big thank you, and keep up the great work.
Sara Petite Gig in Filey Evron Centre was Excellent as the Review wonderful Musicians. The Evron Centre is a wonderful Venue and Thanks to Chris Lee for taking Chances on people like Sara and Dallas Burrow from Texas who was awesome. I go to these gigs because they always turn out to be great none of the Artist i have never herd of. And Don’t know any songs but they always turn out to be great. I try and push myself and go to Punk, Rock, Blues , Folk Country Americana, Classical, If it is real music i will give it a go.
Hi Darryl. With a broad musical palette like that you’re definitely my kind of music fan and by getting out and supporting live music in your area, even when you don’t always already know the artist, you’re helping live music to keep surviving in these difficult times for the grass roots scene. Long may your support and your enjoyment continue.