Emily and I had a great night out on Friday (the 19^th), which centered around seeing Erin McKeown perform at Higher Ground in South Burlington. She put on a stellar show for our stop on her Sing You Sinners tour despite the school-gymnasium-draped-with-old-movie-theater-curtains decor of Higher Ground—I will forever wish for a better venue in our area.

I missed her when she was in town a few years ago, but Emily went—and loved it, although it was an extremely small show—and returned raving with a copy of Grand that I soon fell in love with. Her new album is all covers of tunes from the 20’s through the 50’s with one of her own tossed into the mix. It’s a nice shift to some rock ‘n roll while still retaining the jazziness that I enjoyed so much with Grand.

Having not seen her live before, I was in awe over her stage presence and how tight her vocals are. Anyone who listens to her albums will tell you she has crystal clear vocals that are very smooth, but I was blown away with how perfect they are in concert as well. I also thoroughly enjoyed her enthusiastic stage presence and interaction with the somewhat small and quiet audience.

And she’s definitely not just a singer either, she’s got the guitar down perfectly and you can tell she’s been performing all the stringed instruments for her last few albums herself. It was fun to see her break into guitar solos, something that Grand didn’t quite lend itself to.

She poked at the crowd a bit for being so quiet, but we all really just wanted to hear every nuance of her voice and we made sure to let her hear us between songs. We even managed to get her to come back out for an amazing encore of James! and Lucky Day.

Naturally we returned home with a copy of Sing You Sinners and are continuing to enjoy it. I highly suggest checking out her music if you haven’t before.

My current favorites include Paper Moon, Coucou, Melody, and Rhode Island is Famous For You.

Update: I happened across a photo of an Erin McKeown quote on a Starbucks coffee cup. Cool, but not a place I would have expected to see her name, let alone a quote.

2^nd Update: I didn’t realize we were only the second stop on the tour. Plenty of opportunities left for you all to see her live!