On Friday, February 2, Grace Potter’s Mother Road Tour stopped at The House of Blues in Orlando for a celebration of creativity and artistry. Newcomer Brittney Spencer opened the concert with a 45-minute set showcasing songs from her debut album My Stupid Life, released two weeks prior.
In “Bigger Than the Song,” Spencer sang that her music “makes you want to be fancy like Reba, a queen like Aretha.” That sums up her sound well. Throughout the set, Spencer delivered country music with swagger and soul, from the emotional ballad “My First Rodeo” to twangy rock.
Though country music has always been one of Grace Potter’s influences, the genre comes more to the forefront in 2023’s Mother Road. Potter and her four-piece backing band took the stage to music that recalls Sergio Leone westerns, a stage decorated to look like a gas station on a desolate country road.
Throughout the two-hour set, Potter balanced the various styles she’s played over the years, from the country twang of Mother Road to the pop rock of her first two solo albums and the blues rock of her work with the Nocturnals. After opening with the twangy strut of “Lady Vagabond,” Potter traded her acoustic guitar for her trademark Gibson Flying V, and the band tore through two energetic Nocturnals’ rockers, “Ah Mary” and “Medicine.”
With the concert venue being located within Disney Springs, Potter praised Disney’s “Imagineers” and talked about the decade she spent writing songs for the company. She told the story of originally writing “Something That I Want” for the film Confessions of a Shopaholic, and having it cut from the movie, only to re-record it for Tangled a year later.
“When you create something, it has a way of finding its audience,” she said. “But now TikTok has discovered it, so it’s turned into a whole ‘nother thing,” she said. After Potter performed the song, an audience member taught her the TikTok dance that goes along with it.
Midway through the show, Potter and Company slowed things down. The rest of the band left the stage, and Potter played solo acoustic versions of “Ragged Company” and “Release.” The band then rejoined Potter, along with Spencer, and Potter challenged Spencer to sing harmony on “Big White Gate” even though she didn’t know the song. Potter then returned the favor by playing one of Spencer’s songs.
At that point, the concert hit a bit of a lull, but the band finished the night off with electric performances of some of Potter’s best songs, including “Nothing But the Water,” “The Lion the Beast the Beat,” and “Paris.”
Throughout the show, Potter often sang modified lyrics, such as changing “we’re gonna do it for the good Lord’s sake” to “we’re gonna do it for the whole world’s sake” in “Nothing But the Water.” In Paris, she substituted the lyric “I don’t need a man to make my move” in the chorus.
Whether playing twangy pop, slow ballads, or upbeat rockers, Potter had a magnetic charisma and a commanding stage presence. She strutted and danced, played tambourine and keyboard, and rocked out on guitar. She also had vocal chops to match, ranging from a Western drawl to a soulful croon to a fiery shriek. Just as “Something That I Want” evolved and found different audiences, Potter continues to reshape her music, her album’s tones, and her concert setlists, based on the creative drive at the moment. It’s an impulse that serves her and her fans well.
