Larkin Poe


Larkin Poe “Blood Harmony 2023 North American Tour”
House of Blues San Diego
February 10, 2023



When I arrived at the House of Blues in downtown San Diego to shoot the Larkin Poe Concert it was 6:30pm, a half hour before the doors opened for the show, and the line of fans waiting to get in was wrapped all the way around the block. Seeing all of the fans lined up so early meant that this was going to be a special night. The House of Blues has a large General Admission section on the floor level that allows those in the front of the line to get up front and close to their favorite bands. A packed General Admission section ensures that a loud and noisy crowd will set the tone for the evening. This night was no exception.

The opening band, Vista Kicks, took the stage at 8pm and based upon their enthusiastic greeting they had many fans in attendance. The band made up of three friends from Roseville California and two sisters from Oregon played a rousing 40-minute set that had the crowd hooting and yelling for more before they played their final song of the night. Larkin Poe took command of the stage at 9pm and grabbed the crowd by the throat and never let up for the next 90 minutes. Don’t get me wrong, not all of their songs are full on rockers, but they have a certain emotional intensity that never lets up. From the first song of their 16-song set called “Strike Gold”, the two sisters seemed to be dueling with each other as well as complementing each other. Rebecca Lovell on (Lead Vocals) played a very hard penetrating Lead Guitar that set the tone for each song, while her sister Megan Lovell weaved her slide guitar and harmonious vocals in and out of all of the songs. I don’t mean to imply that Megan is a reactive force in the band for she too had her share of time playing magnificent bluesy solo riffs on her slide guitar. The ladies looked and sounded to me like after all of the years playing music together, that these two sisters are so proficient and so in tune with each other that instead of playing the songs as if they were scripted, they changed up the way each song was played in order to keep their music fresh and alive. Unlike many performers who spend most of their time glued to the stationary microphones on the front of the stage, both sisters moved freely around the stage and only came together at the two microphones when they needed to harmonize their vocals or banter with the crowd. The longer the concert went on the more intimate the music became and whatever distance originally separated the band from the crowd disappeared. Looking over the crowd I could see that they too got caught up in the magic of Larkin Poe. I could see them all moving together as one body having fun on a Friday night and isn’t that what live music does best?

Larkin Poe has been labeled as a “Roots Rock” band and a “Blues” band but on one song I think I even heard some gospel music pour out that got a loud “Amen” refrain from the crowd. In the end the crowd cheered and yelled and demanded an encore. Their encore choice of “Deep Stays Down” perhaps encapsulated the label “Americana”, which like the melting pot our country is, best represents all of the genres that I heard Larkin Poe play on this evening. 

(Article by Steve Anderson)







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