Big Thief surprises Nashville audience with full performance of new triple album Horsepower

Big Thief performed their upcoming triple album Horsepower live for the first time on Saturday, August 22nd at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville. The indie folk trio, made up of Adrianne Lenker, Buck Meek and James Krivchenia, played all 29 tracks from the album in a show lasting well over three hours, split into two sets with an intermission in between. Nothing had been announced beforehand, so the 2,400 fans in attendance were expecting a regular concert evening. Lenker quickly made clear what was in store. "If you had some hopes of hearing some of the songs you might know, those can be discarded," she told the crowd, explaining that two sets of material most of them had never heard before would follow.

The album was recorded in Nashville this past May alongside an extended group of musicians. Those same collaborators joined on stage: pedal steel players Russ Pahl and Greg Leisz, and violinists Hannah Read, Richard Bowden and Zosha Warpeha. As the evening went on, the lineup continued to grow. Iris DeMent took a seat beside Lenker and stayed on stage for the rest of the show, lending her voice to twelve songs. Gillian Welch then joined them, playing banjo and tambourine on nine songs. The night was crowned by the appearance of Lucinda Williams during the encore, who performed Born For Loving You with the band to the delight of the audience in the historic venue.

Horsepower was not performed in album order, but the band built the show dramatically. Lenker opened solo with the title track on acoustic guitar, after which the band expanded step by step as more musicians joined and the songs gained in power. The music embraced the country influences already present in Big Thief's earlier work, but more fully than ever before. Alongside spacious ballads like Avalanche and Hurricane, there was also room for raw and sweeping numbers. The song listed on the setlist as Spatchcock Chickenshit Bingo broke into a joyful stomp and clap that brought the audience along for the ride. The evening's final note was Gift Pleasure Joy, a song Lenker wrote during the recording sessions, about the making of the album itself.

Some of the songs were not entirely unknown. The title track was played live more than three years ago, Carry and Space and Time made their debut in May during a field session for Belgian Radio 1, and Sadness as a Gift previously appeared on Lenker's 2024 solo album Bright Future. Happiness had long been part of her solo repertoire. Even so, the vast majority of the 29 songs were new to those in attendance. The entire evening was filmed by multiple cameras for a concert film to be released at a later date, though details have not yet been announced. An official release date for Horsepower has not been confirmed either. Fans who attended the show reported on Reddit that a release in spring 2027 had been mentioned, though the band has not confirmed this.

This news follows a turbulent period for the band. Big Thief released Double Infinity last year, their sixth album and their first as a trio, after bassist Max Oleartchik departed for personal reasons following ten years together. Shortly after that album came out, they revealed that a new studio album was already finished and that it would be "not what you expect." Horsepower delivers on that promise: a triple album full of Americana, country and folk, created in Nashville with a circle of close musical friends and legendary guests. Next month the band kicks off the next leg of their North American Somersault Slide 360 Tour, wrapping up with a show at Red Rocks in Denver on October 6th.