Review: Tenille Townes brings her living room to Prince Albert for an intimate night of musical magic
words and photos by Scott Roos
There are plenty of ways to finish a tour. You can go out with a bang, throw everything but the kitchen sink at the audience, bring out the big guns and make sure everybody leaves with their ears ringing and their credit cards considerably lighter after a trip to the merchandise table. Or, if you're Tenille Townes, you can invite everybody into your living room, grab a guitar, and remind them why a great song doesn't need much more than a great voice and a story worth telling. This past Thursday, Nov. 12th, at the EA Rawlinson Centre for the Arts was the final stop on Townes' Living Room Tour, and if this was the curtain call on a particularly special chapter in her musical journey, she certainly went out on a high note. Literally.
The stage was dressed to resemble an actual living room, complete with the sort of comfortable, lived-in atmosphere that made the whole affair feel less like a concert and more like an evening spent hanging out with a particularly talented friend. There was an intimacy to the setup that suited Townes remarkably well. No elaborate production, no wall of musicians, no unnecessary bells and whistles. Just Townes, her guitar, a couple of other musical possibilities, and an audience willing to settle in for the ride. It was a particularly welcome opportunity to appreciate just how remarkable a vocalist Townes has become.
I've always felt that her voice is best suited to a more bluesy, folksy environment. When I reviewed her 2020 debut album, The Lemonade Stand, I specifically singled out the bluesy 6/8 feel of "I Kept the Roses" as an indication of the depth of her vocal talents. There was something about that particular performance that suggested there was more to Townes than the polished, radio-friendly country-pop arrangements surrounding her. Thursday night provided plenty of evidence to support that theory.
Her voice has a wonderfully distinctive quality, with an almost conversational delivery that can suddenly blossom into something much more powerful. There's a fascinating little quaver to her vibrato, a soulful quality that occasionally brought to mind the likes of Amy Winehouse or even Billie Holiday. That's admittedly some pretty lofty company, and I'm not suggesting those are necessarily her influences, but there's a certain vintage character to her vocal delivery that makes her stand out from the pack.
And without a full band competing for your attention, those qualities were front and centre.
Townes is also an exceptional storyteller. One of the great things about a stripped-down performance like this is that the audience gets to hear not only the songs but the stories that inspired them. She has a knack for setting up a number in a way that makes you genuinely invested in what comes next. Whether she's exploring heartbreak, uncertainty, personal growth or simply finding humour in the absurdities of everyday life, there's an emotional connection that comes through before she even plays the first chord. That ability was particularly evident as she moved between songs such as "Jersey on the Wall (I'm Just Asking)," "She Plays the Piano," "Goldfish" and "Enabling." Each offered a different emotional destination, and Townes navigated those changes with an ease that made the evening feel like one continuous conversation.
There was plenty of room for humour and spontaneity, too. The Living Room Tour has apparently been built around the idea that every performance should be its own unique experience, with audience requests and unexpected moments forming part of the evening. Townes has spoken about wanting people to feel comfortable enough to show up exactly as they are, and that philosophy was evident throughout the performance.
One of the evening's nicest touches involved inviting several young girls from the audience up onto the stage to join her on the living-room couch while she performed a few songs, including "Girl Who Didn't Care." It was a lovely gesture, but also a reminder of the influence Townes has on younger listeners. It was genuinely impressive to hear just how many of the younger audience members knew the words to her songs. These weren't simply kids dragged along to a concert by their parents. They were fans, and enthusiastic ones at that.
There's something particularly fitting about Townes making that connection. At just nine years old, she attended a Shania Twain concert with a homemade sign asking if she could sing with her musical hero. Twain brought her onstage, and that moment helped convince a young Townes that performing was what she wanted to do with her life. Nearly two decades later, she found herself touring alongside Twain, completing a rather remarkable full-circle moment. Now, she's helping create those kinds of memories for the next generation.
The performance also offered a wonderful opportunity to hear material from The Acrobat, Townes' latest album, released in April. Written during a period of considerable personal and professional transition, the record represents something of a creative reset. Townes has described the process of making it in a spare room at home, sitting beside her dog with a single microphone, initially recording simple guitar-and-vocal versions of songs without any grand production plan.
In fact, she told me in a recent interview that the album began almost accidentally. After recording three or four songs in that stripped-down fashion, she started wondering why she couldn't simply make the entire record that way. The result is an album that embraces vulnerability, independence and the occasional uncomfortable truth. Having stepped away from the major-label system, Townes found herself rediscovering her own creative instincts and figuring out what success meant on her own terms. It's a fascinating journey, and hearing these songs performed in an environment that mirrors the spirit of their creation makes perfect sense.
The evening's emotional high point came with "Somebody's Daughter," a song that has become one of the most recognizable and affecting moments in her catalogue. It was met with an enthusiastic response from the audience, and Townes delivered it with the sort of conviction that reminds you why the song has resonated with so many people.
Before calling it a night, she returned for an encore with a breathtaking rendition of Etta James' "At Last." It was a beautiful way to close the evening, giving her voice one final opportunity to stretch out and remind everyone that, stripped of all the production and studio polish, there's an extraordinary amount of musicality happening underneath that unmistakable tone.
Opening the evening was Calgary singer-songwriter JJ Shiplett, who provided an excellent introduction to the night's proceedings. Armed with just his guitar, a wonderfully raspy, smoky voice and a healthy dose of humour, Shiplett worked through a handful of original songs with an easygoing charm that made him immediately likeable. His rendition of "Darling, Let's Go Out Tonight" was a particular highlight, although the entire set was thoroughly enjoyable. He was warm, engaging and clearly appreciated by the audience. Frankly, I could have happily listened to another half-hour of his material.
Ultimately, what made Thursday night's performance so successful was its simplicity. There's a tendency in the music business to equate bigger with better, but Townes demonstrated that sometimes the most effective way to reach an audience is to remove absolutely everything that gets between the performer and the song.
In our interview, she talked about hoping that people leave her shows feeling a little less alone, having shared a few laughs, perhaps shed a tear, and connected with somebody sitting nearby. That's a pretty wonderful mission statement for a musician, and Thursday night felt like a successful demonstration of exactly that philosophy.
For an artist with two JUNO Awards, two Academy of Country Music Awards and 19 Canadian Country Music Association Awards on her résumé, Townes could certainly be forgiven for leaning on the accomplishments and the machinery of a major touring production.
Instead, she chose to finish this particular journey with a guitar, a living-room couch and a theatre full of people. Turns out, that's more than enough.
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