Concert review: Grace Potter at The Orange Peel
Grace Potter is moving to Asheville!
Well, maybe. The rocker is at least perusing Zillow to investigate the possibility of local real estate, building on a love affair with Western North Carolina that dates back to her first local show with The Nocturnals in 2005 — if not longer.
In town on Jan. 19 for her first performance since a show-stopping set at the 2018 Christmas Jam, Potter frequently expressed her appreciation for Asheville and the capacity Orange Peel crowd, whose members individually and collectively encouraged her with steady sounds of their own thanks.
Rather than start off with a head-banger like “Paris (Ooh La La),” Potter opened with the titular track off her 2019 album Daylight, a fairly reserved number — albeit with some raucous moments — yet all the better to hook attendees before rolling into the sustained high energy of “Medicine.”
A mere handful of songs into the set, after moving between her Hammond B3, Flying V and acoustic guitars, and hands-free at the central mic, Potter made it clear that few musicians can rock as hard as she does with such accessible tunes and also beautifully handle intimate ballads with minimal accompaniment. The number of women who can do it as confidently and effortlessly as she does is even fewer.
Fortified by lovely three-part female harmonies with drummer Jordan West and multi-instrumentalist Eliza Hardy Jones while bassist Kurtis Keber kept steady grooves, Potter’s tunes likewise received major assists from her Nocturnals bandmate Benjamin Yurco, whose phenomenal guitar solos merited some of the evening’s loudest yips (outside of Potter’s own signature piercing screams).
Comfortable in front of the supportive crowd, Potter got jokey about a forthcoming music video, reflecting on the difficulty that she and her friends from Lucius had learning basic dance moves — until wine was added to the equation. “You’ve seen me,” she said. “I don’t dance, I writhe.”
As the evening progressed, an experimental, psych-heavy stretch during which Potter promised things would “get weird” lived up to its billing, but strayed somewhat in its overlong middle jam section. Good times quickly returned, however, in the form of such fan-favorites as “The Lion the Beast the Beat” and “Paris,” both saved for the end of the set like a well-earned treat.
Following a brief respite, Potter and the band returned for an inevitable encore that she stretched from one song (the lovely “Stars,” whose spiritual themes she poignantly tied to the religious service held in the venue earlier that day) to two.
Seemingly finished after issuing heartfelt gratitude to fans on the left, right, and center, Potter returned to her Hammond and fully took the crowd to church with “Release,” the song she said brought her back to music after a period of thinking she might be done performing. Armed with simply her voice and the organ, she dug deep one last time for the most introspective, moving moment of a thoroughly memorable night.
(Photos by Heather Taylor)
