By: Russ Espinoza
Amid dimmed house lights and the ominous sound of a ticking grandfather clock, latter-day sonic goddess took the stage before a sold-out Boulder Theatre on Thursday night and stood tall by channeling a pantheon of vintage rock icons.
Touring in support of her 2015 debut solo release, “Midnight,” Potter was accordingly sans her longtime Vermont cohorts the Nocturnals, which includes her husband and the band’s drummer, Matt Burr.
Instead, the fetching 32-year-old songstress was accompanied by a six-piece brigade that featured two guitarists, a bassist, a keyboardist and two drummers who often played in unison.
Mowing through an eclectic balance of new and old throughout her two-hour and-seven-minute set, Potter showcased her customary surplus of energy, sensuality, and charisma from the drop by opening with Midnight’s introductory jolt, “Hot to the Touch.”
That upbeat dose of the here and now paved the way for Potter to strap on her trademark Gibson Flying V and inquire with the crowd, “Have you had a good fall and winter? Been behaving yourselves out there?” Following a wave of boisterous feedback from the floor, she reversed course nine years for a rendition of “Ah Mary” from 2007’s Nocturnals’ LP, “This Is Somewhere.”
Today’s iteration of Grace Potter assumes a decidedly more pop-rock slant, but last night’s rocking assortment of roots, blues, soul, and pop provided another illustration of her penchant for breaking boundaries and accessing cathartic reinvention on the fly.
During “Biggest Fan,” a new cut, she evoked Stevie Nicks by swaying around the stage like a flower petal in the wind, draped in a silken sash and looking unmistakably angelic in beams of purple light. Then, she made another hard left and began to thrash the opening notes of “Look What We’ve Become,” a Nocturnals’ favorite that she powered through with the command of Patti Smith in a dingy New York basement.
The rhythms of the night were expertly crafted and no two sounds were the same from song to song. Midnight’s “Nobody’s Born With a Broken Heart” conjured KYGO on a good hair day, while an extended revamp of “Turntable” got everyone’s blood pumping before decompressing into a brilliant, lazy river of 60s-era psych-synth.
If it weren’t enough that Potter bellowed “Go Broncos” toward nights’ end, she further energized by saturating her encore with Nocturnals’ hits, “Stars,” “Medicine,” and “Paris (Ooh La La),” proving, if anything, that she favors crowd-pleasing over promotion.
