Sierra Hull brought her lush, captivating style of progressive bluegrass-jazz fusion to New Orleans, LA’s fabled Tipitina’s earlier this week for her first-ever solo headlining show in the Crescent City. Though she has played events like the annual New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival alongside artists like Béla Fleck as recently as this past spring, the performance marked yet another notable milestone for the ever-rising performer.
Armed with a vast array of captivating tunes from her recent releases and upcoming LP (due early 2025), Hull wowed the standing-room crowd with her melodic mandolin chops and adroit backing ensemble of players over the course of her two hour show.
Sierra Hull might have looked small among her oak tree-sized bandmates as they packed the Tip’s stage, but her voice elevated her far beyond simple physical stature. Hull’s International Bluegrass Music Association (IBMA) “Mandolin Player Of The Year” wins eight of the last ten years give ample testimony to the emergence of a generational talent.
You can also throw her effortless rapport with any audience on the top of that pile of upsides, though for the first few songs Hull and her band—featuring Erik Coveney on bass, Shawn Richardson guitar, Avery Merrit on fiddle, Mark Raudabaughon on drums—let their work do most of their talking for them. And what sweet, soaring things they had to say.
Sierra Hull – Webcast Preview [Pro-Shot] – 10/15/24
The entire evening was spent alternating between melodic tunes from her multiple releases and cover tunes from wide-ranging influences like Tears For Fears (“Mad World”) and The Grateful Dead (“Black Muddy River”). Interspersed were a wealth of songwriting anecdotes and shout-outs to her collaborators. Hull and her band brought equal intensity and empathy to make each tune or testimonial—a heartfelt force all its own no matter the tempo, genre, or tenor. Even the legendary venue itself got a shout-out when Hull revealed that although it was the first visit to Tipitina’s legendary stage, one of her band members had played it once before.
Apparently, drummer Mark Raudabaugh has been repping the venue already with a regular-in-his-rotation a Tipitina’s logo shirt in his onstage wardrobe repertoire. He joked about both importance of coming correct for the discerning NOLA music fans and his need for some fresh gear.
Hull and her band of top shelf collaborators made the two hours of stage time go by in the seeming blink of an eye. Mid-set, she gathered the crew around the center mic, while Raudabaugh brought out a snare and jazz brushes for an an intimate number. After that, Hull broke out a noticeably larger, lower-register mandolin, noting comically that its massive scale made her look like her eight year old prodigy self—though clearly her skills have much evolved from even those bright beginnings.
Whereever Hull goes she seems to have friends waiting in the wings to join her. For her Tipitina’s debut she brought up wild-eyed one-woman band and musical force Ghalia Volt. Volt’s unique cigar-box guitar style added a wonderfully haunting, unearthly tone that stood out starkly from the more melodic style of bluegrass Hull creates.
Hull wrapped up her main set with the Tears For Fears cover, and gave the audience a little taste of the Dead with her breathless “Black Muddy River”, both of which she has recently released as singles. The savy move paid off in spades. Sierra Hull is sure enough of herself to hang the entire show on her skills, winning the crowd of fans and folks just there to see her for the first time, then hit them with the songs they likely already knew by heart. The net result was a satisfied stream of fans new and old streaming out into the Uptown NOLA streets under the flag of talent, positivity and love.
For a full list of upcoming Sierra Hull tour dates, head here. This show live-streamed for free exclusively to nugs.net subscribers. Subscribe to nugs.net here to access more livestreams and the platform’s complete archive of live concert recordings. [Note: Live For Live Music is a nugs.net affiliate. Subscribing or purchasing a download via the links on this page helps support our coverage of the live music world. Thanks for reading!]