Reviewing a music concert may seem a bit outside the scope of a comedy website, but folk singer/songwriter Grace Petrie fits so naturally into the world of comedy that in 2022, the fact that she’d started doing stand-up was the least surprising news I’d heard all year. By 2026, she has two stand-up hours under her belt, enough to be called a singer/comedian.
She’s currently on a tour of music concerts, but even in that context, she’s funny enough to remind us that she’s always been comedy-adjacent. She has jokes in many of her lyrics – some songs, like I Wish The Guardian Believed That I Exist and Nobody Knows I’m a Fraud, are structured like classic musical comedy songs, picking a different humorous angle for each verse. But more than that, Grace Petrie’s inter-song patter is as funny as you’d expect from someone who’s toured with comedians, entertaining the comedy audiences for over fifteen years.
Petrie is a funny singer; she’s also a left-wing protest singer, a butch lesbian + feminist + trans ally singer, a truly talented folk singer. The unapologetic nature of her political music is not as common as it should be in popular music these days – there is no “both sides-ism” from Grace Petrie, and in case you didn’t pick up her beliefs in the lyrics, she reiterates it in her passionate and intelligent chat between songs.
She also writes beautiful personal music, and songs that blend the personal and political, discussing the pain and frustration of watching the values she loves crumble in society. This is part of why she draws such an intensely loyal crowd; the room was full of people who’ve felt these frustrations, who are starved for someone to articulate and validate them.
I saw this show in Union Chapel, and the energy was electric, as members of the audience sang along, cheered, threw fists into the air, stood up and applauded. There should be some irony to playing these songs in a church, an institution with a long history of misogyny and homophobia. But it didn’t feel ironic in a cool progressive church like Union Chapel, with rainbow flags on the wall. The better connection between performance and venue is that watching Grace Petrie hit her soaring choruses in front of stained glass windows felt like a religious experience.
The format was a short (~40 minutes) first half with just Grace Petrie and her guitar, playing slower songs, getting the audience warmed up. Then an intermission, then she came back for a longer set with a five-piece band, so they could do full justice to the louder songs. Her voice always rung clear over the instruments, reminding me that there are qualities to her vocals that must be heard in person to be entirely appreciated, no speaker can pick up every nuance. Her voice is unique, literally and metaphorically, and it’s worth hearing.
Grace Petrie is on tour in the UK until October 31, and then Australia and NZ in February and March 2027. You can also find her music on Bandcamp.
Simon Huxtable