On October 23rd, Maine native Genevieve Stokes played in Chicago for the first time with opener Lily Kershaw. Before her show at Beat Kitchen, she hosted a free private jam session at Reckless Records. Stokes’ hometown of Portland Maine has an intense and direct influence on her music. The cover of her recent release depicts her perched on the edge of a rock near the nighttime shore with a lighthouse and a bolt of lightning painting the backdrop. The aesthetic of her debut album, ‘With a Lightning Strike,’ centers around the landscape of Maine and its close proximity to the ocean.
Throughout her music and artistry, Genevieve Stokes uses the motif of water, making numerous references to bodies of water. In one of her songs titled “River,” Stokes delicately sings “I’ve got a river, got a river in my body/It’s flowing for free/When I let you go, keep going down the stream.” Her emotions and feelings in this situation are too strong to suppress. The metaphor of conveying her emotions as a river perfectly encapsulates the fierceness of her situation. In one of her older songs, “Surface Tension,” she uses water as a metaphor to represent going through a tough time: “I’m treading muddy waters/I am not what you wanted/I’ve been through this before.” In “Amusing,” a song from her new album, she sings “There’s no use fighting the sea.”
Lily Kirshaw began the night with an acoustic and folksy set, directly juxtaposing Stokes’ more bass-heavy and instrumental setlist. In addition to her original songs, she played a cover of “Chelsea Hotel #2” by the famous folk singer Leonard Cohen. During her set, she cracked many jokes, helping the audience become more comfortable with her. Kirshaw has been making music for over a decade, and has perfected her craft to a T. The intimacy of her set had made instant fans of anyone who had not previously known her work.
The mystical and fairy-like sound of Stokes’ discography entrances audiences of all ages. She has a melodramatic presence and a knack for performing, evident in the way that she floated across stage. In her most recent album and in her older music, Stokes and her band use a variety of sounds to capture the essence of her songs, including accordion, electric bass, bells, and the sound of a door creaking.
One of the youngest audience members in attendance, 13-year-old Sacari from Ohio, said, “I like the type of music she does and I like the lyrics and rhythms to the songs. She is very articulate.” Another audience member, Hayley, said that “Every time she (Genevieve) releases something, it just connects something so innate in all of us. It makes it at the right place and the right time of your lives.” Genevieve Stokes is a timely artist who knows how to capture audiences of all ages.