Andrew Sarlo
‘Live at Revolution Hall’ by Adrianne Lenker Album Cover.
June 20 and 21, 2024, Adrianne Lenker played sentimental and nostalgic sets at the Revolution Hall in Portland, OR. Lenker’s presence far exceeds the exact formalism that most artists strive for within the 43 tracks that comprise the album, released on April 25, 2025, with each and every song making you feel like you are there at the Revolution Hall. Lenker currently lives in Portland, which made the concert all the more special, as the true meaning and depth of her music exceeds the recorded albums. Each time Lenker plays a live concert, it’s easy to tell that in the audience’s eyes and the way they sway to each song or hear the soft sobs during slower songs, Lenker encapsulates them into that living moment, forgetting everything that’s not within the present.
The 43 tracks that make up the album explore all of the emotions, sweet or solemn, one would experience at Lenker’s concert – and it is abundantly shown in the track “indiana & sneezing.” The track includes an audience member continuing to sneeze throughout the song, making other various audience members laugh, and Lenker comments on it during the song, which is usually a tear-jerker. Lenker shows that you don’t have to exactly do everything right within performing, along with just Lenker having fun, the audience has fun, and vice versa.
“Promise is a pendulum,” off Lenker’s band project, Big Thief, and their album “Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe in You” showcases Lenker’s ability to, even in public moments, make it feel like it’s an intimate private space. Even if you’ve never been to a concert, or maybe you’ve been to hundreds, the album makes you feel like you were there experiencing it, though you’re living your own life. The “Live at Revolution Hall” track of “promise is a pendulum” swiftly transitions from soundcheck seamlessly to the live concert for an audience, though no matter the difference between the two, it still feels like the raw emotion that is emphasized is clearly represented.
A large amount of the tracks recorded for the live album were unreleased, bringing in that sense of excitement for what could be next in the release of new music. Lenker tends to play unreleased tracks at her shows, even years before they are released on an album, but the sheer amount of tracks that were either played live or recorded at soundcheck were insane. Tracks like “oldest,” “no limit,” “happiness,” “i do love you,” and “ripples” certainly made fans in great anticipation of all the music that is to be released.
Lenker even includes tracks like “oso,” “- happy birthday everyone -,” and “- drawing a star -” that aren’t exactly music, but rather are just Lenker and other’s talking or simply having a conversation. “- happy birthday everyone -” is literally just comprised of Lenker and the crowd singing happy birthday to someone, which is something you would never see any sort of big artists doing, just tying in Lenker’s genuine love for the people she plays music for, and especially for how it’s brought her to where she is now. Something that is so apparent within the playing of these unreleased tracks is that Lenker is just going along with her love for music and has no intentions of keeping that a secret.
“Anything,” a fan favorite of Lenker’s, includes the crowd singing along with her, just as at the start of the song she encourages them to “sing it if you know it,” said Lenker. The amount of love that the song receives is incredibly justified, as every lyric and plucking of her acoustic guitar feels authentic and tender, as Lenker spills her feelings out. At the end of the song, there’s a slight pause in the music and it is just sheer a cappella, and then slowly kicks back up to the instrumentals again.
If there’s anything that’s certain in life, it’s that Lenker will never lack to push out music, whether it be live or recorded in a studio, that lacks depth. Through all 43 songs, we see every side of Lenker – cheerful in “spud infinity,” emotional in “ruined,” grateful in “sadness as a gift,” and finally, her last track of the album, content within “wake me up to drive (outside).”