Adia Victoria with Lizzie No @ Zanzabar - Louisville, KY
Adia Victoria with Lizzie No @ Zanzabar - Louisville, KY
Words and Photos Courtesy of Emily May
Nashville-based artist Adia Victoria brought her current tour to Louisville recently, performing at the cozy and intimate venue Zanzabar! Always drawing a great crowd when she performs in Louisville, this evening was no different. Opening the show this evening was New Jersey singer/songwriter/harpist/guitarist Lizzie No. There is something so powerful in the simplicity of a singer on stage with just her guitar, her harp, and her voice, and she had the crowd silent in rapt attention as she sang. It was apparent to me from her first song that she is a storyteller, weaving songs about her family, fun things like taking a much needed vacation, her love of Mythology with her song “Narcissus”, and more serious social justice issues surrounding Black lives, such as “Killing Season”, about white peoples’ insatiable urge to come after Black people, and “Sundown”, a benefit track she wrote for Black Lives Matter. Along with having songs that tell stories, Lizzie No has a great sense of humor and chatted a lot with the crowd between songs. Talking about a song of hers that was the closest thing she had to a love song, she told the crowd how people had told her that they danced to it at their wedding. Making a jokingly cringy face, as her relationship with this person didn’t work out, she said that art is in the ear of the beholder and joked that she would be happy to attend peoples’ weddings…not to sing, but to judge for herself whether or not the relationship would work out, which got quite a few laughs! She took a moment during the set to talk about how happy she was to be out on the road with Adia Victoria, whom she considers a hero of hers. She put on a fun and incredible set and I have no doubt she made many new fans this evening!
Next up was Adia Victoria, who is a force to be reckoned with on stage. Having recently released her incredible new album Southern Gothic, she and her band performed many songs off of the album this evening. Starting things off with “Dixie”, Adia truly feels the music as she sings, moving her body with the music and staring out at the crowd with wild eyes and stomping feet. Telling a story about her signature red boots, she told the crowd how she loos down a lot when singing the blues and that her grandmother bought her her signature red boots so she would have something pretty to look at and remember her power. Also mentioning the pearls she was wearing on stage, she talked about how she was told it’s ok to curse, just as long as you look like a lady while you do it! She then asked if someone who works at the venue could bring her a shot of bourbon, since she was after all in Louisville! She talked quite a bit throughout the evening, telling the stories behind her songs and joking with the crowd, making for both a serious and lighthearted set. If there is one thing that is very apparent at an Adia Victoria show, it is how much she loves the Blues. She talked a bit about her love for the Blues and how with the Blues, nothing is off limits or taboo. It lets us see all of the parts of ourselves…the parts beneath the surface that aren’t fine and that it is ok to not be fine. She went onto say, “If anyone else in the crowd is a Christian school survivor, I see you”, before launching into “Whole World Knows”.
About halfway through the set, she did a cover of the 1940 blues song “Parchman Farm”, originally by Blues singer Bukka White, in the style of Bobbie Gentry, one of her musical icons. Telling the crowd how she loves being from the south (South Carolina), she said how people in the south know how to tell stories and turn sad shit into gold. She later talked about how the tour is called the “Ain’t Killed Me Yet Tour” and how women like Nina Simone and Fiona Apple taught her that her life is hers and the only thing she can count on and that as long as she continues to be present in each moment that she’s not done yet. She went onto to talk about growing up in the evangelical church and how it messed with her head and made people scared of death, but taught that if you are good you can go to heaven and fly around in the clouds. She re-enforced her loves for the blues, in that the Blues made it comfortable to talk about death, that her pleasures and flesh were hers. She went onto perform an old Blues cover of the 1933 song “You Was Born To Die”, paying homage to her southern Black ancestors. Ending her set with the only song she released in 2020, “South Gotta Change”, it was a song she says she wrote in the wake of the killing of George Floyd and the death of John Lewis. In speaking truth to power, she said she wrote the song to open her mouth and speak her truth, and that nothing changes unless we make it and how it’s time to start telling the truth, the ugly truth. After leaving the stage briefly, Adia came back out by herself to sing one more song, a song she said a woman must sing by herself. She talked about being a French major in college and studying abroad for a bit in Paris, spending the summer there working on her French and hanging out with French men. When she returned home, she found that when it came to men and women sowing their wild oats, women get shamed but that she wasn’t going to play that game. She talked about how she had fun in Paris and was not ashamed. She dedicated her final song of the night, “Heathen”, to all of the women out there who know they have the right to bodily autonomy. It was a great night of music, laughs, and storytelling that had the crowd engaged throughout both artists’ sets! A magical night indeed!
LIZZIE NO
ADIA VICTORIA
