ERIN GIBNEY

Tuesday February 28, 2023

New Faces Night @ The Basement in Nashville, TN

(Review by: Jeffrey Kurtis)

The city of Nashville is always in constant motion, changing and expanding as cranes litter the skyline putting together chic, modern designs that are eye catching, but at the same time have you yearning for yesterday’s more classic downtown feel.

That new versus old visual that the skyline provides paints a perfect metaphor for the vast music scene that the city has to offer, and nowhere is that juxtaposition more prevalent than on Tuesday nights at The Basement when they host their popular weekly showcase, New Faces Night.

The historic venue that’s proudly held its ground on the South side of the city since 1972 wraps around you like an old friend the moment that you cross the threshold and are slapped with walls lined in posters and stickers of the legendary acts that have passed through this hallowed ground.

While the venue itself has a foot firmly planted on the classic vibe of yesterday’s Nashville, the New Faces Night pushes a modern edged flare into the venue to bring it up into today’s modern era while providing an incredible balancing act of what is right here, right now against what’s still to come from tomorrow’s stars.

On a night that featured a wide array of styles, including a rock-n-rolling inspired honky-tonk brand from Royal Hounds, a pop infused singer-songwriter twist from Noelle McFarland, and a blast of pure Americana from Kevin Daniel and the Bottom Line, emerging starlet Erin Gibney delivered a fusion of country and pop to walk a modern balance that enticed the early arriving crowd as she opened the night.

Immediately introducing the crowd to her irresistibly modern pop country vibe, Gibney wrapped a hushed like vocal into “Easy Like That,” her breakthrough single which saw her connecting its lyric to the hearts of the audience as she emotionally sang of wishing a past relationship would have gone differently, striking into a power packed punch through the chorus that sees her knowingly admitting that it’s not that easy to go back and recapture what was.

“We’ve been on the road a lot lately opening up for the band Sister Hazel,” Gibney, who’s originally from Connecticut, shared to an ovation from the crowd. “We were recently playing in Boston and everyone I knew was there, so I had to tell a little fib about this song…but it’s about an ex,” she told as she pressed into the slower mid-tempo “Over Me Over You,” continuing to slide the power of her voice through its ranges as she sang the “I’m over you” lyric while pondering if he’s over her moving on from him or not.

The familiarity of Fleetwood Mac’s “Landslide” allowed Gibney to then present a sing along moment with the crowd as she kept its style closely knit to the original with a whisper in her vocal that delivered a decisive softness across the venue.

“This last song is a really special one to me. It changed a lot of things for me this past year,” gratefully said Gibney with a smile, quieting the conversations in the crowd to a minimum as she tilted her voice into ‘Naïve,” living within the moment of the dream with childlike wonder lyric that spoke encouragingly on the idea that as life changes through the growing up years, she hopes she never knows any different than to believe that everything is possible.

With high profile dates on the road with Sister Hazel and a transparent honesty wrapped into each word she sings, the emerging talent not only showered the crowd with a piece of her newest material, but also offered a firm look at her past year which boldly acted as a spotlight shining moment to showcase why she’s on the fast-track to success.

Gibney exuded a vibe that’s confident, driven, and determined as she explored within her signature style to define exactly who she is with an attractive sound that borrows from pop ideals and country avenues to smash together into a sound that is purely modern, and 100% Erin Gibney.

FULL SET LIST

1) Easy Like That

2) Over Me Over You

3) Landslide (Fleetwood Mac cover)

4) Naive

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