Sierra Hull and her band stopped by The Independent in San Francisco on Wednesday night. The Tennessee native gave the NorCal crowd a master class in bluegrass, newgrass, jamgrass, and jazzgrass, including several tunes from her 2025 release A Tip Toe High Wire.
The stage was adorned with antiquey low-voltage incandescent bulbs and strings of autumn leaves. A small table behind Hull supported a framed picture of her grandmother. The ambiance was far more intimate than the big stages Hull and her four bandmates inhabited opening for Willie Nelson and Bob Dylan on this summer’s Outlaw Music Festival Tour.
Hull’s bandmates are Shaun Richardson (guitar, background vocals), Avery Merritt (fiddle, guitar, background vocals), Erik Coveney (bass), and Mark Raudabaugh (drums). Each is an accomplished musician, and they all had ample opportunity to strut their stuff during the 90-minute set.
Speaking of strutting – the boots Hull wore at The Independent are worth a mention too. Someone from the audience even shouted out, “I love your magic boots.” (Okay, that was me. They were pretty cool boots.)
The first half of the show was heavy with tracks from A Tip Toe High Wire. The first song, “Come Out of My Blues,” set the tone for a night of butt-kickin’ bluegrass-based fun. Soon after, Hull sang “Boom,” the first single from the new record. “Boom” is a catchy, bouncy number with vocals reminiscent of Alison Krauss.
Midway through the show, Hull told the crowd she wrote “Spitfire” for her granny, whose picture she held aloft for all to see. “This girl, my granny, she deserves a song. But it’s about all those spitfires out there. They’re mean, but they can love you. They’ve got your back!”
Hull has been wowing audiences since she was a young teen. Yes, her voice is clear and as magical as her boots, but it’s her mandolin picking that draws the biggest oohs and aahs. Make no mistake, the frequent turns on lead guitar and fiddle respectively by Richardson and Merritt prove they’re no slouches. That being said, and even though she claims she stopped growing in stature at thirteen, Hull’s playing stands tallest among her lofty peers.
The second half of the set included several songs performed traditional bluegrass style with the band all assembled in front of a single mic. This segment included a cover of “Sitting Alone in the Moonlight,” a traditional song made famous by Bill Monroe. A few songs later, show opener Stephanie Lambring accompanied Hull on the vocals of “Birthday” from the headliner’s 2016 album Weighted Mind.
Another Bill Monroe tune, “Old Dangerfield,” provided the opportunity for Hull to invite Sophia Sparks on stage, a Bay Area teenage mandolin player. Sparks held her own with her elder (but shorter, as Hull pointed out) bluegrass sister.
The set closed with Hull and company’s version of “Mad World,” the Tears for Fears early 80s classic. Hull released this track as a single last year, though it’s not on any of her studio albums.
After a bow by the band, Hull returned to the stage solo for a brilliant encore performance of “Stranded.” This is a well-crafted, complex original song with hints of classical composition (somewhat like a lively Bach harpsichord piece) and one particularly brilliant run up the strings that had everyone gasping. Then she transitioned to “Angeline the Baker,” an old-time fiddle and bluegrass instrumental. (This song, originally written by Stephen Foster in 1850, once had lyrics lamenting the loss of an enslaved woman who was sold away, but few if any bluegrass pickers ever sing the words.) At this point, Hull’s fellow musicians came on stage one by one to fill in the sound bit by bit, amping up the energy to leave the fans wanting more.
Stephanie Lambring opened the show with a solo set. She strummed a hollow-body electric guitar while singing a selection of her own poignant, often melancholy songs. Between tunes, Lambring was witty and pleasantly self-deprecating. “I used to be a wedding singer. I do a lot more funerals now.” Lest people didn’t take her seriously, she added, “I’m not lying.”
The crowd, to its great credit, showed great appreciation for the southern Indiana native’s homespun lyrics and a voice as sweet as apple pie. You could have heard a feather fall during “Jasper,” a song she wrote about a neighborhood character from her childhood who lived (according to the lyrics) “in a skyline trailer decorated with shame and dog shit.”
Her last song of the set, “Hospital Parking,” was likewise sad and touching. Lambring has a gift for tenderness and pathos that deserves attention:
Doctors say she's gonna be okay
So you save that call for another day
Walk down the world's longest hallway
To your car
In the end, she sings, “You still gotta pay for hospital parking.” Ain’t that the truth? Even when she sings about little white lies, Lambring is all about truth. And truth is valuable.
