BY MICHAEL CHOWNE
One of those uniquely special evenings sat in the front row at EartH (Evolutionary Arts Hackney) on Wednesday 30th September 2026 billed as ‘An Acoustic Evening with Tenille Townes – The Living Room Tour’.
Tenille was raised in Grande Prairie, Alberta, Canada and moved to Nashville when she was 19, where she’s had the full experience of signing a major record deal and now proudly treads an independent path. You only need to read her Substack posts, as I regularly do, to understand what a beautiful and genuine person she is so it was a delight to see her back on a London stage.
Across an hour and a half Tenille gave us songs from her stripped back album, ‘The Acrobat’, released in April this year, along with many previous favourites including, of course, ‘Somebody’s Daughter’ and ‘Jersey on the Wall (I’m Just Asking)’. There were even some deep cuts as Tenille took audience requests too!
It’s really lovely, and shows just who Tenille is, that she’s chosen to champion some UK based artists on this tour – she had 120+ submissions after making an appeal for support acts on social media. One such artist was New Zealander (but living here) Kylie Price who last night shouted out a request for ‘grey like Emmylou’ (a song that features I’m With Her on the album). Tenille surprised Kylie by asking her up to the stage to join her to sing it – me and Liz couldn’t have been prouder as we’re seeing Kylie with her full band live tonight at 21Soho (tickets still available – come along and hear her story of last night!). Great job, Kylie, what a moment to savour that was!
There was another special moment when Tenille invited up to sing with her one of her part Nashville based British friends Rachel Button. Only Rachel didn’t sing alone as her Sussex Rock Choir raised themselves from their seats to the side of the front rows to join in! How wonderful that sounded!
Tenille wasn’t finished there though. The support act for the evening, given a full 40 minutes, was 21 year old Luke Hart from Southport (but now living in Manchester, I think). After playing some gentle indie-folk songs that Tenille declared that she loved, Luke was also invited up to the main set for a joint rendition of Bob Dylan’s ‘Don’t Think Twice, It’s Alright’. Luke played some nice intricate acoustic guitar and has a good voice – he assured us that he is a fun guy, he just gets his sadness out in his songs.
This evening very much achieved Tenille’s aims of a cosy, living room feel and there was a lot of love in this big room for her. She played her trusty acoustic guitar, a borrowed electric guitar and, for one song each, keys and kazoo! (the latter being her co-write, ‘Goldfish’, recently released by Kenny Chesney).
There was a genuinely heartfelt standing ovation that clearly touched Tenille’s heart before she finished with a great version of the Etta James classic ‘At Last’, reinforcing what a class act this young lady is. If you’re seeing her in Manchester tonight or Glasgow tomorrow, you’re in for a treat. Come back soon with a full band, Tenille!
