Esther Rose at The Grace

Esther Rose

H.B. Whitman

The Grace,  24 July 2026

After trying to see her for ages I finally got my chance to see Esther Rose live and even luckier for me, it was her first time in the UK with a full band. Plus it was in the super intimate and disco-ball filled The Grace, formerly Upstairs At The Garage. It really was worth the wait! It has been years since I've been to The Grace, in fact the last time I was here it was called Upstairs At The Garage because it's located right next to that legendary venue. It looked instantly familiar though when I walked in, with a ceiling filled with lots of small disco-balls, making it feel very magical indeed.

Strangely the support act for this show wasn't on the website but it turned out to be a country singer called H.B. Whitman and his band. When he walked on stage dressed in double denim, with a bushy moustache and a, shall we say, not very authentic looking cowboy hat, I had suspicions that maybe he wasn't American and as soon as he started talking it was clear this was a British bloke with an obvious love of Guy Clarke, John Prine and Kris Kristofferson and similar 70s country music. 

The music he played was very much in that ilk but, while I love all those artists, there was something about it that didn't click with me, although a lot of the audience seemed to dig it. Among his original material, which he said was from an upcoming album, he even did covers of Prine, Kristofferson and Randy Travis, but sadly it didn't endear me as I wasn't fond of his voice. There was also a joke about a song being written for his fiance and his love of eggs, which he's allergic to, so when he eats them "I shit myself" which did not feel very Prine-like at all. There was also another song written about General Custer, but I guess from the English perspective. 

Like I said, he did get a good response from a lot of the audience but I didn't think he seemed a good fit for Esther Rose, who although started off very traditional old school country, has been branching out in recent years. I always love a bit of pedal steel though and his set had plenty of that. Plus his bassist later lent his bass to Esther Rose's bassist to play, so I thank them for that!

I've been meaning to see Esther Rose for the longest time (she released her fifth album, Want, last year) and she even played London last year at The Lexington, for a solo acoustic show. I was determined not to miss her again and I jumped at the chance to see her this time, before even knowing that she was finally bringing her band over for the first time. What luck for me! 

When she finally arrived on the stage with said band (a bassist, guitarist, drummer and, yes!, a pedal steel player too!), I was shocked at just how petite she is with the tiniest waist I've ever seen (the corset top probably accentuated this though). She looked stunning though and was constantly smiling, maybe relieved she finally made it over to the UK despite her van being stolen and then, thankfully, recovered just days ago.

In complete contrast to the stereotypical country of the support act, Rose and her band began with the song New Bad, a brilliant blend of alt-country and shoegaze, with raw guitars and Rose's soaring vocals. It's such a cool way to start the show, and I loved Kunal Prakash's fuzzy jazzmaster paired with Rose's semi-acoustic guitar and the pedal steel on top of it all. It was such beautiful noise, entirely my thing!

She told us she was going to be playing lots from her new album Want, even though it's now a year old, but it's her latest and she hasn't played these songs here before. She then launched into the song The Clown, another fuzzy more alternative number, which ended in lots of feedbacking guitars. At the end she said it was about taking psychedelics, and then meeting a sexy clown, going through the clown's eyes and coming out of the other side and realising that the clown is merely an expression of your gender identity that's been suppressed! Very trippy yet somehow it made complete sense!

I loved hearing all the Want songs as it was one of my favourites from last year, like the catchy and upbeat Had To, a song about the ups and downs of drinking alcohol, which someone manages to sound so sweet and recalls Laura Cantrell at her very best, using lots of gorgeous pedal steel. 

While the emotional and yearning Ketamine was the perfect blend of folky twang and grungy sorrow. There was a cool moment during this song when guitarist Prakash jumped into the audience and played his guitar solo right in the middle of the crowd before returning to the stage.  

There was also the dreamy Color Wheel and the lovely shuffle of Tailspin from the new record, but among all the Want songs she also snuck in an old favourite, the joyful strum of Chet Baker (from her previous album Safe To Run) which had Rose smiling as the pedal steel went into full swing at the end.  

Rose asked us if we minded if she played some new songs, which of course we didn't. It's always exciting to hear some songs before anyone else and the first, Skyscaper, started out quiet, with a slow chugging riff, before suddenly speeding up and getting punky,  It was fantastic. 

Another song, Bigger Picture, she told us was about the rise of artificial intelligence.  "It's the theme of my new record," she told us. "It's the theme of everything I'm thinking about. It's the theme of all online discourse. We're all trying to figure out what to do: what are we going to do about A.I.? What's the artist's role, right? What's gonna happen, we all want to know what's gonna happen. And I realise, like what Dr. Nina Simone says, it's the artist's job to reflect the times. We don't know what's going to happen but at least be in the times we're living in. So in my new album I try and zoom out farther and farther till I can take as much in as my little narrow vision can." 

She played the song by herself and it sounded so reflective and full of yearning for times gone, with lines like "take me back to '96, my kingdom for a floppy disk" and "in the third millennium, the year of our Lord, the boys never want to grow up, the girls never grow old." It was absolutely stunning and makes me super excited for her new record, which she's apparently recording at the moment.

The second half of the show she told us was going to dedicated to her older material, and she told us to get our imaginary cowboy hats on for it, and sure enough, the show went full country, in the best way possible, starting with the song Money Tree.

Most of these songs came from her debut album, This Time Last Night, which recently got reissued, and I must say, tracks like the foot-tapping Wanton Way Of Loving and sweetly, twangy Jump Down Baby, had that perfect rootsy, old-timey country feel and the crowd absolutely loved them, singing along with a lot of the words. There was something very celebratory about it all and Rose herself had a beautiful grin on her face as she sang these songs. 

I'm not that familiar with the song Handyman, the sole offering from her second album You Made It This Far, but she announced it like an old favourite and indeed the crowd seemed excited and were singing along. In fact, there were a couple of girls at the side of the stage dancing and singing every word, you could tell how excited they were to hear these old songs, which was nice.

Things got rockier with the fantastic Spider (despite the creepy name!) and then she ended the set with two more songs from Want: the title track, which slowly built in the loveliest way and got a huge cheer when she sang "Free Pal*stine" (I have to put the asterisk as the last time I quoted a performer saying this my blog post got censored)  in the middle, so this along with an earlier moment when she got everyone to shout "fuck Trump" demonstrated that despite the old school country leanings she and her audience appear to be very much more liberal and open-minded. 

The main set ended with the upbeat Rescue Me, which gave the band a chance to shine as seemed to really get into the swing of the song and even Rose herself came to the edge of the stage, a huge grin on her face as she got lost in the groove and the feel of things. It certainly had us all moving and smiling too.

She made no pretense at going off for an encore, instead her band left and she performed the aforementioned new song Bigger Picture by herself despite requests for lots of different older songs. I loved hearing the new tunes though but she didn't disappoint giving an old favourite for the final track of the night. First though she called up her friend Sabine McCalla to the stage to sing with her. I'm actually not familiar with McCalla, who is a New Orleans-based Haitian American singer-songwriter, who released her debut album last year. 

She certainly looked cool in her blue halter top and Rose told us she is a very good friend of hers. Huddled together around Rose's microphone they sang Safe To Run, with McCalla beautifully providing the harmonies. After the first verse McCalla moved over to another microphone but she continued to harmonise with Rose, beaming the entire time. It really did sound good and showed off both their voices nicely. It is true that with the rockier songs Rose's soft and girlish voice sometimes got lost a little in the music, but these two acoustic songs had it ringing out pure and true. I'm glad I got to hear it in both settings because it was truly lovely.  

After the show Rose was hanging around talking to fans (there was one dude from the same place in America as her, who was particularly chatty and she seemed pleased to encounter!), and she kindly signed a couple of records for me and seemed super nice. So the whole experience of seeing Esther Rose for the first time really was a fantastic one and I can't wait to not only hear her next record but hopefully see her live again too!