Tag: sierra ferrell

Wednesday 24th June 2026

Manchester Academy, Manchester, England

It is very hot in Manchester right now. At 7pm, as the doors of the Manchester Academy open, the sky remains a brilliant cloudless blue as though it were still noon. Only a dimly visible moon, surreal in the bright summer sky, reminds us of the evening. The heat is close and confining and there is no breeze. It has been like this for days without respite and those of us who have queued in the shade make our way inside, where the heat will be even harder on us.

I begin with the heat because there are only a few things that could compel me to pack myself into a sweaty crowd of more than two thousand people under such circumstances. Sierra Ferrell is one of them.

It’s almost four years to the day since I first decided to write one of these concert reviews. That was also for Sierra Ferrell, singing for a few hundred people at the Future Yard in Birkenhead, and it was so special a night it kicked off a thirst for experiencing more of my favourite artists live. I’ve had more than fifty such special nights since.

But after tonight I have no more concerts on the horizon until Halloween, the clear calendar an unprecedented experience for me in the last few years. Some things I will be happy to take a break from, mostly the long waits before doors and before openers and after openers, and particularly in the poor crowd behaviours I find increasingly irritating, but there is also much in a night of music that is like a drug you return to, and Sierra Ferrell’s concert tonight demonstrates much of it. Not least there’s the energy and the thrill as a band moves through the gears, as is the case tonight when Sierra is roared onto the stage by a delirious audience and she and her five-piece band launch straight into a sprawling, stop-start ‘Rosemary’, followed by the poppy ‘Dollar Bill Bar’ and a stirring ‘Don’t Let Your Deal Go Down’.

There’s also the opportunity a night of live music presents, if the artist is kind, to hear new, unreleased songs. I first heard ‘Kickin’ Up Dust’ in December at the Co-Op Live here in Manchester, when Sierra and her band opened for Mumford and Sons, and it already had the uncanny feel then of a dyed-in-the-wool classic country song. Tonight, the singing from some elements of the crowd suggests I’m not the only one who’s familiar with it, and ‘Kickin’ Up Dust’ rolls easy with that sort of innocent, rambling mid-tempo only classic country seems able to muster.

It’s not the only unreleased treat Sierra gives us, for it’s followed by a “gambling song” that neatly links dice and other games of chance with the decisions we all must make in life (“let me roll,” Sierra sings in the song’s anthem-like refrain). If that were not enough, later in the night Sierra also breaks out a concertina to perform a straight and plaintive love song, ‘Without You’, that might be too cute if not for the charming eccentricity the instrument brings to it. Sierra also grips the microphone tightly with both hands to showcase her powerful vocals in ‘Tryin’ to Love You’, a new song that seems tailor-made for such a display. In a sign of things coming full circle for me, ‘Lighthouse’, which I heard in the Future Yard in 2022 when it was yet to be released, now reappears on tonight’s setlist as an established track from the Trail of Flowers album.

Trail of Flowers understandably contributes the majority of tonight’s setlist, although Sierra still manages to make room for ‘In Dreams’, played acoustically with Oliver Bates Craven on guitar while the rest of the band takes a breather, the popular singalong cover of ‘Years’, and, for a resounding encore, the evergreen signature song ‘Jeremiah’, characterised by Mike Robinson’s distinctive bended Dobro notes.

But ‘In Dreams’ and ‘Jeremiah’ are not the only representatives from the Long Time Coming album. Part of the thrill in experiencing a night of music is when an artist plays a song you know well, but gives it extra dimensions you did not expect and changes forever how you will hear it. And tonight, the best performance of a song is ‘Far Away Across the Sea’, which starts with a lengthy, Latin mambo-like shuffle from Matty Meyer’s drums. From there, the band stretch and pull the music with the dexterity of tango or a jazz ensemble; Joshua Rilko’s mandolin solo sounds almost like a Spanish guitar, a vibe reinforced by Geoff Saunders’ follow-up double-bass solo and Oliver’s swarthy electric guitar solo. The five men of the band might all be wearing starch-white shirts and white cowboy hats, looking every inch a quintessential 50s country band, but here they embrace a Latin swing. In the stifling heat of the Academy it is perfect music.

“Water? Water?” Sierra asks throughout the night, inbetween songs, pointing to people in the heaving mass whom the stewards can pass cups of water to. It’s endearing to see her concern, eyes searching the crowd like a mother hen. “Water? Oh my god, I’ve never felt responsible for this many people.”

The warm atmosphere is also remarked upon by tonight’s openers, the Brudi Brothers, with George Brudi comparing it to the American dancehalls which first hosted rock-‘n’-roll in the Fifties, for they too had a tragic lack of air conditioning. It’s one of the other fine things a night of live music provides when you are turned on to an opening act that proves much better than you assumed they would be. The Brudi Brothers – biological brothers, George clarifies – deliver a wonderful opening set, characterised by their throwback three-part harmonies and winsome stage banter. Between their sound and their healthy, all-American look (as George puts it, “these two [Conrad and Johannes] look like Mormons, and I’m the guy they’re trying to convert”), they appear almost stepped out of time.

There’s substance too behind their style; their catchy viral song ‘Me More Cowboy Than You’ might get the excited cheers from the audience tonight, but for my part it’s the clever songwriting of ‘Chasing Paper’ and ‘Motherland’ which convince the most. The trio open with the Tom Waits-ian blues of ‘Moon Over Montana’ and end with Conrad’s fast harmonica shuffle of ‘Rock Island Line’, drawing deserved cheers from the crowd with each and every song. As fine as it is, their version of ‘Matty Groves’ pales compared to the souped-up version I heard Kassi Valazza sing last year (again, almost to the day), but their cover of the Mills Brothers’ ‘You Always Hurt the One You Love’ is bursting with old-timey charm.

Tonight is the three brothers’ “first real gig on this side of the pond”, and it’s fair to say it’s a triumphant debut. When they return to the stage halfway through Sierra’s set to harmonise on a cover of Jerry Reed’s ‘A Good Woman’s Love’, there’s an unforced raucous cheer at their return. One hopes the return will not be their last.

But even though the Brudi Brothers tower over Sierra on the stage, everyone knows who the true giant is in the room. Perhaps the best thing about a night of live music is the sense of incredibility at being so close to a genuine artistic talent in the flesh; an artist filling a vast room with her voice, meeting the challenge of entertaining thousands.

That Co-Op Live gig in December, opening for Mumford and Sons in front of more than 20,000 people, was a tantalising nine-song glimpse of what Sierra Ferrell can deliver, but tonight is proof once more that she belongs on the big stages. ‘I Could Drive You Crazy’, which plays after the Brudi Brothers leave the stage for a second time, is a startling marriage of Sierra’s pop sensibility and her Appalachian roots. Its fiddle stirs the soul; the song itself evokes something indefinable as it builds, something like honest ambition, as Sierra reaches out and claims what is hers.

Elsewhere, there’s the down-and-dirty blues of ‘Chittlin’ Cookin’ Time in Cheatham County’, the light, airy country of ‘Why Haven’t You Loved Me Yet?’ and the anthemic pop of ‘American Dreaming’, a song ideally suited to be played before a crowd of enthralled thousands. There is also, as part of the encore before ‘Jeremiah’ ends the night, a fillip to the Manchester audience. Oliver Bates Craven plays the distinctive acoustic guitar opening of ‘Wonderwall’, before Sierra leads the boozy native crowd in a singalong of the Oasis hit.

I must admit that I groan inwardly a bit, because this over-exposed mad-fer-it lads’ band are pretty much inescapable here in my hometown, and have become unspeakably synonymous with our ‘culture’. But if anyone can win me over to the song it’s Sierra. “I listened to this band all the time as a teenager,” she says with a smile, and to be fair she seems as delighted as the most pissed-up, bucket-hatted Manc to be singing what is, underneath it all, a catchy pop song. But, to paraphrase the lyrics of Sierra’s friend and one-time tourmate Nick Shoulders, I’ll die where I stand if I hear ‘Wonderwall’ again.

If there is a song that epitomises Sierra’s power on stage, it is the one that ended her regular set tonight, before that obliging encore. When I first heard ‘Fox Hunt’ at the Future Yard in 2022 it was an unreleased Appalachian folk song with duelling fiddles and a driving acoustic guitar. In the years since, it has evolved into Sierra’s explosive concert swansong.

It begins with Sierra banging away with a gong on an oversized bass drum, howling melodically in time with the beats. With the crowd already enrapt, Sierra begins to sing in that distinctive voice that has drawn astonished new listeners to her sound for years. The fiddles then join the party, taking up the now-established riff and raising it to fever pitch, as Sierra dances and twirls about the stage. The band pulls the song into a hoedown before – inconceivably, and as an impressive show of Sierra’s musical dexterity – changing the fiddle riff into a heavy-metal guitar riff that crunches and grinds the song to an exhilarating conclusion.

This is, as Sierra’s bass drumskin puts it, ‘Heavy Petal Music’. With flowers in her hair and a frilly white dress falling to her shoulders, the petite Sierra Ferrell is deceptively dainty in appearance. But those bare shoulders, bronzed and glistening in the heat, are capable of bearing a full band in a foreign town, doing justice to her natural talent and God-given voice with an energetic performance befitting the great names in music that we revere; those legends that we wish we could also have seen in their prime. There is great power here, bursting from that slight West Virginian vessel, and hers is a name that we will undoubtedly also come to revere.

As the encore comes to an end, the band restarts a coda of the just-played ‘Jeremiah’, while Sierra throws yellow flowers one by one into the crowd. One is caught by the woman next to me, and its presence breaks a spell, reminding me that this is a flesh-and-blood artist on the stage, not some intoxicating Siren-like myth. It makes her performance all the more remarkable. I don’t even consider that the flower could have landed in my hands; there are flowers for all when music like this is able to thrive in what’s left of our world.

Setlist:

(all songs from the album Trail of Flowers and written by Sierra Ferrell, unless noted)

1. Rosemary
2. Dollar Bill Bar (Ferrell/Melody Walker)
3. Don’t Let Your Deal Go Down (Traditional) (from the deluxe version of Trail of Flowers)
4. Kickin’ Up Dust (unreleased)
5. Pair of Dice (unreleased)
6. Lighthouse (Ferrell/Lindsay Lou)
7. Chittlin’ Cookin’ Time in Cheatham County (Arthur Smith)
8. Years (John Anderson/Dan Auerbach/David Ferguson/Patrick James McLaughlin) (from Something Borrowed, Something New: A Tribute to John Anderson)
9. In Dreams (from Long Time Coming)
10. Without You (unreleased)
11. A Good Woman’s Love (Cy Coben) (unreleased)
12. I Could Drive You Crazy
13. Far Away Across the Sea (from Long Time Coming)
14. Why Haven’t You Loved Me Yet?
15. Tryin’ to Love You (unreleased)
16. American Dreaming (Ferrell/Walker)
17. Fox Hunt
18. Encore: Wonderwall (Noel Gallagher) (unreleased)
19. Encore: Jeremiah (from Long Time Coming)

My other concert reviews can be found here.

My fiction writing can be found here.

Wednesday 3rd December 2025

Co-Op Live, Manchester, England

Towards the end of her short opening set, Sierra Ferrell invites Marcus Mumford and Ben Lovett out onto the stage to join her and her band. “That’s what we’re here for,” says a runty man stood in the crowd behind me, and no doubt he speaks, albeit too rudely, for many of the 20,000 people here who have filtered into the Co-Op Live arena in Manchester to hear Mumford and Sons, tonight’s headliners.

But he doesn’t speak for me. I wager there are a few others like me, scattered throughout the arena like cuckoos in the nest, who have made their way here tonight with the sole desire to hear Miss Sierra sing. I last heard her live in June of 2022, a short pilgrimage over to Liverpool to witness this small wonder of the modern world; it was so wondrous an experience that it moved me to write for the first time about music, in a review I wrote of the night. It’s a habit I’ve continued, for forty gigs since that night at the Future Yard in Birkenhead, but with no opportunity to write again about Sierra. Aside from a few festival appearances, this is the first time she’s returned to English shores, and I decide that even if it’s as an opener rather than a deserved headliner, I’m going to savour every moment. It has been, you could say, a long time coming.

More than three years after she cast her pretty magic spell in Birkenhead, Sierra Ferrell now appears on the stage in Manchester, an apparition in a fetching purple Victorian dress and matching vintage hat, looking like she is about to walk into 221b Baker Street to enquire about the services of Mr. Sherlock Holmes. Sierra’s costuming eccentricities have become a key feature of her live shows; the last time I saw her, her hair was bedight with flowers, but tonight the flowers are confined to a large, vivid bouquet placed before her on the stage.

Preceding Sierra’s arrival are the five men of her band, all in matching white patterned shirts and black neckties, looking for all the world like an old-timey country band. On Sierra’s right, closest to my side of the stage where I view from near the front of the pit, Oliver Bates Craven sets himself with fiddle in hand. He’ll also switch to electric guitar at some points in the band’s set. Behind him, Matty Meyer is seated on the drums, next to Geoff Saunders on bass (both electric and upright). On the other side – next to an oversized bass drum which looms like Chekhov’s gun, ‘Heavy Petal Music’ written in large yellow letters on the drumskin – Mike Robinson fills in on acoustic guitar, banjo, dobro and pedal steel. Before him, Joshua Rilko – who, like Oliver and Geoff, is a familiar face by Sierra’s side – carries a mandolin. Completing the old-timey look, all five men are in white hats, aside from Joshua in black.

For their first number, Sierra joins Oliver’s fiddle with one of her own, leading the introductory notes of ‘I Could Drive You Crazy’ as Geoff runs a bow across his upright bass. Sierra Ferrell begins to sing – a sentence I’ve been waiting to write again for more than three years – her voice coming in high and strong and pure. I realise that for many of the people here tonight, this will be the first time they’ve heard that voice. While we’re only treated to nine songs from Sierra tonight, we’re blessed for each and every one of them.

This triumphant opener is followed by ‘Jeremiah’, one of Sierra’s signature songs and an opportunity for the band to really find their groove. Joshua moves to banjo and Mike bends some notes on a dobro, Sierra spinning carefree in a circle as they play. She’s a star in the making, as natural and at ease in this arena of 20,000 as she was in front of the few hundred at the Future Yard in 2022. It’s in this song that I make my peace with Sierra only being an opening act tonight; this is her crowd, for these nine songs, and she glides through it all with us in the palm of her hand.

‘Jeremiah’ is followed by ‘Bells of Every Chapel’, its title announced lustily by Sierra, with Mike switching to pedal steel to give yet more authentic country feel to the band’s sound. But despite their look and the instruments they have to hand, Sierra Ferrell and her band are no hidebound purists or retro tricksters. They prove this in their next song, with the drum patter and dirty electric guitar of ‘Why’d Ya Do It?’ a cool change of pace that surely slays any remaining sceptics among the mainstream Mumford fans tonight that this is a gal to reckon with.

Joshua’s mandolin begins the next song, ‘Years’, the only song tonight that isn’t penned by Sierra herself. It’s a cover of a John Anderson song that Sierra has made her own since she recorded it for a tribute album a few years ago. It suits her voice perfectly as, sans instrument, she picks up the microphone and strolls to the front of the stage to sing. She gestures tears from her eyes and dances snakily to the lyric “like the wind”, but as with all things Sierra it’s the vocal performance which is the most impressive. With harmonies from the men in the band, Sierra’s voice fills the arena – something it feels like it has always been destined to do. Her haunting woos resound as the song draws to a close and the lights go out to a rising applause.

Next up, a real boon for the cuckoos in this nest as we are treated to an unreleased song that Sierra, back behind her acoustic guitar, announces as ‘Kickin’ Up Dust’. It’s a wonderful country song, sincere and homespun and played straight, reminiscent of Dolly Parton as Sierra sings “Put one foot in front of the other/That’s the way it always goes/One thing leads to another/Kickin’ up dust on a hardwood floor.” The band plays it with a sort of easy, laid-back zest, almost like the way an old favourite or well-known standard would be played. It’s an uncanny sensation, as the song, while new and unheard, sounds like a rediscovered classic. It settles in all snug and nice.

A big cheer erupts as Sierra now invites Marcus Mumford and Ben Lovett onto the stage for what will be one of her best-received songs of the night – and not just because of the added star power. ‘American Dreaming’ is, I confess, not a song that’s hit me all that strongly before, but its wistful verses and anthemic chorus are ideal for a live setting. Marcus in particular seems glad to be here, bouncing out onto the stage and hugging Sierra. With Ben behind him on accordion, Marcus is relaxed and grinning behind his electric guitar, revelling in this opportunity to harmonise with Sierra as she stands with a microphone in one hand and a sprig of flowers in the other and sings. At the end, as the crowd cheers, he blows her a kiss and bows theatrically to her talent.

The goodwill spreads, with Sierra introducing her penultimate song, ‘Dollar Bill Bar’ – Marcus and Ben having now left the stage – with some simple, earnest thoughts on spirituality and loving one another. ‘Dollar Bill Bar’ is a well-judged song for this stage of the night, an easy, rolling pop number that still allows space for Sierra’s impressive vocals.

All too soon, we’re into the final song of Sierra’s set – a big finale. The big Heavy Petal Music bass drum, which has been cocked like Chehkov’s gun at the back of the stage, is now rolled up to the front and fired. Sierra begins banging on it rhythmically with a large gong mallet drumstick, her hips shaking in time as she begins howling the opening notes of ‘Fox Hunt’. Behind her, Geoff Saunders leads a willing audience in clapping their hands to the beat.

As the song builds, Sierra yells and picks up her fiddle, joining its sound to Oliver’s own fiddle. The band crashes into the music and Sierra begins to sing. ‘Fox Hunt’ has always been a barnstormer, and tonight it’s evidence of how far Sierra has come and how much potential is in her music. I had heard this footstomping crowd-pleaser back in 2022 among the few hundred people at that live gig in Liverpool, and it’s only grown in strength since then, filling this arena of 20,000 with a raucous, driving sound that morphs from fiddle hoedown to a snarling rock jam. There’s no space so large that Sierra’s sound can’t fill it perfectly.

It’s a thrilling moment, and also rather bittersweet for me, as not only do I know it marks the end of Sierra’s set – hopefully it won’t be another three years before I experience it again – but because it hints at the potential of how powerful a full headline arena set from Sierra Ferrell could be. We’ve had an abridged version tonight, a little big show from the band, but it would be fantastic to hear this blossom as a full set.

Forty-five minutes is not enough to hear such a special talent. While Sierra’s strategy of opening for Mumford and Sons, an established act, in order to grow her own audience here in the UK is an understandable one (and kudos to Mumford and Sons for giving her the platform), I do wonder if she’s not spreading herself too thin with her frequent mainstream collaborations and guest spots; if perhaps she would not be better served by visiting the UK more regularly to build her own following and thereby reaching arena-level crowds as a headliner, the way Tyler Childers and Billy Strings – who played the O2 and the Royal Albert Hall in the last couple of months, respectively – have done over the last few years. She certainly has the talent and potential for it, a natural star who has not only penned a solid stable of her own songs but who is one of those artists you love to hear interpret the material of others. I don’t know how the music business works, of course, and no doubt I speak from ignorance, but having seen Tyler and Billy graduate to the biggest arenas as headliners this year, I listen to Sierra bang the drum on ‘Fox Hunt’ tonight and know without a shadow of a doubt that she could do the same. I’d wager she’s done much to win over some new fans tonight, but those of us already under her spell know she deserves a night of her own.

‘Fox Hunt’ ends with a big finish, the petite purple lady on stage a force of nature as she stretches her arms wide with fiddle in hand and sings. As the crowd roars its applause with an enthusiasm usually reserved for a headliner, she makes sure to thank each member of her band by name.

But one name that won’t be forgotten is Sierra’s own. She will come back out again later in the night during Mumford’s set – after yet another costume change – to duet on ‘Here’ with a pink flower in her hand, but her work is already done. As she leaves the stage following her forty-five minute opening blitz and the crowd buzzes with energy, I realise I’m no longer a cuckoo in the nest, but just one more fan among a crowd of Sierra Ferrell’s thralls. She’s cast her pretty magic spell once again. Everyone else awaits the arrival of Mumford and his sons, but for me the night is already blissfully complete.

Setlist:

(all songs from the album Trail of Flowers and written by Sierra Ferrell, unless noted)

1. I Could Drive You Crazy
2. Jeremiah (from Long Time Coming)
3. Bells of Every Chapel (Ferrell/Oliver Bates Craven) (from Long Time Coming)
4. Why’d Ya Do It? (from Long Time Coming)
5. Years (John Anderson/Dan Auerbach/David Ferguson/Patrick James McLaughlin) (from Something Borrowed, Something New: A Tribute to John Anderson)
6. Kickin’ Up Dust (unreleased)
7. American Dreaming (Ferrell/Melody Walker)
8. Dollar Bill Bar (Ferrell/Walker)
9. Fox Hunt

My other concert reviews can be found here.

My fiction writing can be found here.

Monday 27th June 2022

Future Yard, Birkenhead, England

It is hard to write about music because it is an elemental thing. Even among artists and other creative types, musicians occupy a special sphere. There is a line attributed to Walter Pater that all art aspires to the condition of music, and even an ordinary musician can, with a few strums of a guitar and some simple lyrics, bring forth the harmony that is in the world much more effectively than a great writer. Certainly, writing about music often ends up destroying the magic in it, turning the experience of sung gold into mute and lumpen lead.

“My hands are little, but they’re strong,” Sierra Ferrell says at one point on Monday night, in between songs, and on that stage those small, dainty hands touched upon the casual magic that music has but which is much harder to find in other art forms. She is certainly no ordinary musician. To hear Miss Sierra sing for the first time is an experience, whether on an album or a video online. To listen to her live is to witness one of the Seven Wonders of the Modern World (others include the Empire State Building, the International Space Station, and how Pete Davidson is attractive to women). It is hard to describe her voice, not only because of the problem of writing successfully about music, but because its qualities shapeshift elusively as you hear it. To describe it as earthy misrepresents its femininity; to describe it as tender or melodious undersells its power. It is note-perfect, and yet with a ruggedness that stays true to Sierra’s West Virginian roots. It is like an angel who has decided to no longer serve, but has not turned away from the light either, and instead chooses to sing according to what it feels truly shines.

I have travelled the thirty-five miles from Manchester to Liverpool precisely to experience this wonder, and the show does not disappoint. In the last couple of years I’ve become a fan of this new country scene – much to my own surprise – and the old iPod I’ve loaded up for the car journey is full of Sierra’s music, mixed with Nick Shoulders, Colter Wall, Charley Crockett and Tyler Childers, among others. The first song on shuffle as I pull away from home is ‘Silver Dollar’, and whether by coincidence or kismet, it’s the first song Sierra plays after I arrive at the packed, dark Future Yard in Birkenhead. After a strong opening act by Josh Beddis, filled with slow songs and including a rolling closer called ‘The River’ – “sinners, won’t you find your way back home” –plenty of goodwill has been generated in the crowd by the Welsh picker’s genial stage presence. The atmosphere is further enhanced when Sierra arrives on stage and throws what appears to be confetti or petals into the crowd. They don’t reach beyond the first row, but unless she deployed a t-shirt cannon they wouldn’t have found me anyway. I’m standing at the very back of the room, near the bar, though I’m not drinking tonight (I’m driving home after the show). If I was any more of a wallflower, I’d be singing ‘Sixth Avenue Heartache’.

The venue, the Future Yard, is the perfect size for the performance that Sierra and her band – Oliver Bates Craven on mandolin and fiddle and Geoff Saunders on stand-up bass – are about to deliver. It is large enough to generate an atmosphere but small enough to emphasise the power in the songs, whether that’s the tender intimacy of ‘Whispering Waltz’ or the raucous energy Sierra finds in ‘Fox Hunt’ or ‘I’d Do it Again’.

On stage, Sierra places her small frame behind her acoustic guitar. She has a crown of flowers sown into her wheat-gold hair – a striking array of pinks and reds and oranges and yellows. She looks like she has stepped out of an Alphonse Mucha painting. And when she begins to sing, the effect becomes otherworldly. Her body sways as she sings and strums on her guitar, and she won’t break the spell she has over the room for the rest of the night.

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The opening ‘Silver Dollar’ is followed by ‘Give it Time’, with Oliver and Geoff harmonising on the chorus to give it a throwback bluegrass feel. It’s a sign that, for all of Sierra’s unique ability, she is also supported by formidably talented friends. The third song, ‘Why’d Ya Do It?’, features some great fiddle from Oliver; the first sign that while the crowd may miss the incredible Josie Toney – Sierra’s regular fiddle player who, for whatever reason, has not travelled for the UK tour – they need not mourn her on the night.

The performance reaches another level with the fourth song, ‘Bells of Every Chapel’. Sierra introduces it in her tender Southern accent, saying it was inspired by watching the Netflix show The Crown with a friend. It’s a reminder that she hasn’t stepped out of one of Mucha’s art nouveau paintings, or a Roaring Twenties honky-tonk, but exists in the here and now. The song was co-written by Oliver Bates Craven and he leaves another mark on it with a mandolin solo. Not to be outdone, Geoff Saunders delivers a solo on his stand-up bass. Solos from both artists will become a regular and welcome feature of tonight’s set. A high note at the end of this song, held by Sierra for a long time, gets the crowd whooping. The trio on stage will maintain this level for the rest of the night.

A release is provided by the slow and intimate ‘Whispering Waltz’, showcasing Sierra’s vocals on a night when that could be said about every song that’s heard. It is followed by a reprise of ‘Silver Dollar’ – a surprise, particularly as there later proves to be no place on the setlist for ‘In Dreams’, another signature song. The seventh song of the night is the lesser-spotted ‘Littlebird’, from the 2018 album Pretty Magic Spell. Its warm reception from the crowd returns an almost shy thank-you from the artist, as though Sierra is surprised that people respond to her music.

As though to shake off this bout of shyness, Sierra and her band launch into the best song on the night, the as-yet-unreleased ‘I’d Do it Again’. She plays up the cuteness of the lyrics, selling it with a wink here and there, and displays great control of her voice as she hits all the right beats without pausing for breath. Even after solos from each of the three players – including a brief one from Sierra’s acoustic guitar – I’m still surprised when the song, which in its versions online has a charming Cole Porter vibe, reaches a raucous end that gets the crowd going again. Sierra roaring “I’d do it again – three times!”, refusing to let the song end, shows how the versatility in her vocals is matched by the flexibility in her songwriting. ‘I’d Do it Again’ was the most unexpected performance of the night.

Matching the earlier effect of following ‘Bells of Every Chapel’ with ‘Whispering Waltz’, Sierra changes pace after the frenetic end to ‘I’d Do it Again’ by singing the sweet and accepting ‘Made Like That’, followed by ‘Lonesome Feeling’, an Osborne Brothers song introduced as an “old bluegrass number”. Talk of West Virginia in between songs leads to an apparently impromptu rendition of John Denver’s ‘Take Me Home, Country Roads’. Seemingly suggested by someone in the front row, the audience is only too happy to sing along.

Sierra is not yet ready to leave her home state, and begins to sing ‘West Virginia Waltz’. It is another impressive vocal, holding a long note on the word ‘flame’ as the song builds. Her voice proves the strongest even when harmonising with two men, though for the next song Sierra stands alone on stage. She plays ‘Rosemary’ from her 2019 album Washington by the Sea, a murder ballad that is intriguingly followed by the unreleased ‘Fox Hunt’. Sierra plays fiddle on this song, with Oliver also on fiddle and Geoff switching to acoustic guitar. This was the song I anticipated most before the show, with the versions I had seen online finally convincing me that I had to see Sierra live. I don’t expect the new verse she delivers, which suggests that this crowd-pleasing foot-stomper may also morph into something of a murder ballad or outlaw song itself. It’ll be interesting to see what its final form will be when it’s finally cut for an album, but, as Sierra says when the song is finished, “don’t ask me when that is”. It will be quite a task to replicate the live energy of this song in the studio.

Sierra follows up ‘Fox Hunt’ with two other unreleased numbers, ‘Lighthouse’ and ‘Don’t Let Your Deal Go Down’. The three musicians harmonise on one mic for ‘Lighthouse’, and the song hints that Sierra is far from finished in building her stable of quality tunes. Despite the relative unfamiliarity of these two numbers, she still has the crowd in the palm of her hand and has them waving their arms in an arc during the chorus of the next song, the hopeful ‘At the End of the Rainbow’.

The sight of swaying arms also proves appropriate to summon the next number, ‘The Sea’. Though Sierra has returned to a familiar song here, she still has a surprise or two in store. ‘The Sea’ starts as expected, a slow, jazzy piece, but then gets unexpectedly high-tempo. Oliver and Geoff perform some now-signature mandolin and bass soloes to complement the song’s new swift current.

The band and the room are still full of energy, but we’ve reached the last song of the night. Sierra launches into ‘Jeremiah’, and the song seems all the sweeter for knowing it is the last. Another welcome surprise of the night: Miss Sierra begins to howl like a wolf on the final verse of the song, much to the delight of the crowd. Perhaps she’s been spending too much time with Nick Shoulders, her yodelling and whistling sometime-tourmate who seems nuttier than a shaken sack of squirrels.

Sierra and the band leave the stage, bowing to the cheers and the applause of the crowd, before returning for a brief encore. “You guys like honky-tonk?” Geoff says, before they sing the old bar-room song ‘Dim Lights, Thick Smoke (and Loud, Loud Music)’. As a nod to the British audience, a line is changed to “that pub down the street”. It can sometimes feel like country fans from outside West Virginia or Texas or the Bluegrass State, particularly those in other countries, are excluded in the name of protecting the genre’s authenticity, but the music never sounded as natural in England as it did tonight. The spell cast is complete.

It is unlikely that Sierra or the band will remember this night. Pretty soon they’re travelling on to London, and then Europe, and there’ll be stages and festivals and honky-tonks aplenty when they head back home to the States. If there remains any natural justice in art today, Sierra Ferrell will be in high demand. She proved tonight, if it needed to be proved, that she can do it all. The high notes and the low, the raucous songs and the tender ones. The voice is the thing that alters you when you hear it, but what is clear throughout the night is that the songcraft is also strong. Old favourites and new soon-to-be-favourites have been played, and ‘The Sea’ and ‘I’d Do it Again’ in particular have changed form without being diminished. It requires a feat of musicianship to bring all this together. It’s most noticeable, of course, in the stand-out moments – the high held notes of Sierra’s singing, the solos from Oliver and Geoff – but also in the night’s smaller moments – the light touches on Oliver’s mandolin, the backbeat of Geoff’s bass, the inflections in Sierra’s voice as it rolls over certain lyrics.

It’s these small moments that return to me after I leave the venue and start the late-night drive back to Manchester. I missed an opportunity to have a photo taken after the show – Sierra and her band mingled with fans at the bar – as it seemed awkward to stick around when I was alone and could not drink due to the need to drive home. I remained a wallflower to the end. But I clutch a black Sierra Ferrell t-shirt with ‘the bee’s knees’ on it, and smile. It seems absurd to purchase a memento when the night itself has been unforgettable, and perhaps it was the final symptom of the spell Miss Sierra had cast. I remember a song from earlier in the night. “Little bird,” she had sung. “Now won’t you sing to me. I know you’ll sing for free. I’m right where I wanna be.” I don’t expect her to sing for free, but on Monday night in Liverpool I was right where I wanted to be.

Setlist:

(all songs from the album Long Time Coming and written by Sierra Ferrell, unless noted)

1. Silver Dollar (Ferrell/Nate Leath)
2. Give it Time
3. Why’d Ya Do It?
4. Bells of Every Chapel (Ferrell/Oliver Bates Craven)
5. Whispering Waltz (Ferrell/Craven)
6. Silver Dollar (reprise) (Ferrell/Leath)
7. Littlebird (from Pretty Magic Spell)
8. I’d Do it Again (unreleased)
9. Made Like That
10. Lonesome Feeling (Billy Henson) (unreleased)
11. Take Me Home, Country Roads (John Denver/Bill Danoff/Taffy Nivert) (unreleased)
12. West Virginia Waltz (Ferrell/Leath)
13. Rosemary (from Washington by the Sea)
14. Fox Hunt (unreleased)
15. Lighthouse (Ferrell/Lindsay Lou) (unreleased)
16. Don’t Let Your Deal Go Down (Traditional) (unreleased)
17. At the End of the Rainbow (Ferrell/Leath)
18. The Sea
19. Jeremiah
20. Encore: Dim Lights, Thick Smoke (and Loud, Loud Music) (Joe Maphis/Rose Lee Maphis/Max Fidler) (unreleased)