Brittany Howard Takes Flight at Summerfest

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Framed by a Strawberry Solstice full moon, Brittany Howard and her band took the stage channeling Alice Coltrane’s cosmic grooves. By the fourth song security personnel were dancing in the aisles.

The former Alabama Shakes songwriter headlined the BMO Pavilion on Summerfest’s 2024 opening evening.

Throughout the evening, Howard vigorously moved back and forth across the stage or prowled menacingly, commanding the room backed by a seven-piece group and a pair of backing vocalists, with a set that ranged from sensuous grooves to funky wah-wah riffs to quieting ballads.

There were hints of Howard’s guitar solo virtuosity when she occasionally picked up the cheap, vintage catalog-model guitar and turned it inside out, but tonight was showcase for her expressive vocals and songs drawn from real life. Things got churchified with an extend Hammond organ break, as Howard paced the stage stabbing her finger in the air, testifying to make a point. 

Who knows if Howard has moved beyond her time with Alabama Shakes? With Thursday’s performance, a set that recalled both Macy Gray’s long-ago mesmerizing Riverside Theater concert and Kamasi Washington’s galactic voyage at Turner Hall, Howard is charting her own music course. “You have the power, you have the power. Because I gave it to you” she chanted in the mantra-like coda in “Power to Undo.”