An hour and a half before she is about to take the stage and unleash her inner rock diva on an anxious sold out crowd of Brotherly Love, Grace Potter is seated across from her Nocturnal drummer Matt Burr at an Italian restaurant three blocks away from the Theatre of Living Arts in South Philadelphia. Positioned at a corner table, she appears overjoyed and energetic after receiving news that the show is sold out; her hand in the air in excitement. With the release of their third studio album, self-titled, in June of last year, Grace Potter and the Nocturnals toured hard behind the record throughout 2010 and kicked it into high gear in 2011 with a fresh string of dates, taking little time off over the winter.
Dressed in a dazzling black jacket and leather mini skirt, Grace takes the stage in high heels flanked by the rest of the Nocturnals as she straps on a white Gibson Flying V guitar and the band cruises into cuts off of This Is Somewhere and their latest album including “Hot Summer Night” and “Only Love.”
Commanding the audience behind her Hammond B3 organ while donning pink sunglasses, Grace leads the band as they dig deep into a funk groove in the beginning of “Oasis.” Orange light shines above Burr onto his cymbals like a hot sun while Grace paces the stage with the aura and attitude of Stevie Nicks, weaving her hands raised above her head in a circular motion. She flips the stylish shades to a fan four rows deep and nods to acknowledge the kind gesture. Midway through the extended jam that exponentially builds upon itself, Grace takes the bluesy desert landscape to another energy level with a shrill that raises the hair off of your neck. At that point, the power of Janis Joplin immediately enters your mind.
Following a stripped down version of “Ragged Company,” onstage alongside guitarists Scott Tournet and Benny Yurco, Grace and the rest of the Nocturnals gave the floor to Yurco for a long acoustic introductory solo. With his long hair aggressively whipping in synch with the motion of the jam, the dark shadow profile on the side wall of the venue completely described the energy he had onstage.
Back behind the organ, Grace and the rest of the band returned to the stage and wasted no time before diving into a cover of Heart’s “Crazy On You” that showed her powerful vocal range. With that soulful, bluesy, testify down by the banks of the river type of style, Grace did an a-capella version of “Nothing But the Water,” off of their 2005 release.
“Were gonna do something that I know you all haven’t us do before,” Grace prefaced before the band did a version of Beyonce’s “Why Don’t You Love Me?” Ditching a layer of clothing and channeling the Sasha Fierce inside of her, Grace brought back the energy and held the stage with the presence like that of Tina Turner. Closing out the evening with their latest single, Grace and her Nocturnal friends transitioned into “Paris (Ooh La La),” cueing a loud roar from the audience. “You got me down on the floor, so what’d you bring me down here for,” Grace sang as she harmonized parts with bassist Catherine Popper in the chorus.
“With all of this love and positive energy here tonight, I wanna take some of that love and send it over to Japan; there’s gotta be a little bit to spare,” Grace said on the wake of a catastrophic earthquake and tsunami in Japan that occurred earlier in the week, as she returned to the stage to finish off the night with a three song encore that included a high powered version of “Medicine.” Towards the end of the song the band huddled around Burr’s drum set, all members with sticks in hand, for a huge drum solo.
“We finally did it, we finally sold out the TLA!,” Potter said as she thanked fans for spending the evening and staying up late with her and the Nocturnals. The energy that Grace put forth throughout the entire show was incredible and her passion for music and making music with her friends is a great chemistry to experience live.
