BY MICHAEL CHOWNE

Saturday 20th June 2026 showed us once again why Alyssa Bonagura is so beloved of UK country fans as she brought her band, including fiance Steve Shirley, to lowerthirdsoho for the final leg of her ‘America’s Backroads’ tour.

Alyssa may have been born in Franklin, Tennessee and quite literally brought up in a tourbus by her musician parents but she’s definitely regarded as an honorary Brit, something that becomes official in October when she marries Welshman Steve. Having studied at the The Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts and since splitting her time between the UK and Nashville, Alyssa is now making a name for herself as a producer as well as a singer-songwriter but this show was all about her as a centre stage star, and her album released earlier this month.

We certainly got the full band experience with drums and some sensational, at times quite heavy, guitar work but it was the more acoustic sounding numbers that really allowed Alyssa’s voice to shine – and this girl can write a tune! ‘When You Move to LA’ was just beautiful, along with the superbly written ‘Hippies and Gypsies’ while ‘Small Town Tuesday (Who You Gonna Be?)’ again gave us that full-on Sheryl Crow feel. ‘Circles’ is a great song that I’ve been listening to ever since Jana Kramer released it in 2015 but this was no cover as Alyssa was one of 3 originally credited writers.

Pre-album songs ‘New Wings’ and ‘I Make My Own Sunshine’ of course elicited crowd singalongs and the only slight disappointment was that we appeared to run out of time for the encore of ‘Other Side of the World’, the song that brought Alyssa and Steve together for the video.

I’ve been seeing Alyssa live for several years now – this was my 16th show – going back to her time in The Sisterhood Band – but this feels very much like Alyssa’s time right now and I’m sure there’s much more to come from this artist who defies genres but is steeped in a country music upbringing.

Opening the show for Alyssa, and referred to as her ‘bestie’, was a new name to me in Jackie Lee, also from Tennessee. Playing solo with acoustic guitar, Jackie gave an assured performance evidencing a strong deep voice and some interesting songwriting. Loved his dry wit too as he apologised for those who thought they were coming to see an Asian babe! Jackie did a good job in getting the busy crowd hyped for Alyssa and started a singalong of his own too.