As she strides on-stage, Frazey Ford nonchalantly places her glass of red wine on the speaker positioned next to her and leans over her guitar into the mic. “We’re gonna play some songs,” she says. “That’s how this goes.”

It’s a cool start to an icy night. Many of the crowd, as Ford acknowledges, have faced treacherous roads and slippery pavement to get to the thrice-rearranged gig tonight. After an 18-month wait, both anticipation and expectations are high. Just as well then that the country singer more than exceeds the bar set for her.

The Canadian songstress first garnered acclaim as a founding member of the alt-folk band The Be Good Tanyas  and saw much success throughout the noughties (including headlining the Royal Albert Hall in 2006) before striking out on her own in 2010. Since then, much of her solo work has paired confessional storytelling with soul-tinged Americana to create a catalog that is laidback, comforting yet somehow melancholic.  

Ambling through her setlist, Ford creates a space that feels relaxed and intimate, although there is still a sense that each song is born from a considered place of raw emotion. Switching out her acoustic to sit at her keyboard, her vocals simmer over the soulful grooves of her back band during ‘Azad’, a song dedicated to and named after Ford’s sister. What’s interesting though is that new tracks like these pack as much of a punch as old favourites like empowering breakup anthem ‘Done’ and ‘September Fields’, a lament on life’s purpose marinated in a bouncy swing of interplaying guitars.

The show draws to a close as Ford returns to the keyboard for ‘U Kin B The Sun’, the title track of her most recent album. Through both her honeyed vocals and sweet repartie with the crowd, the singer crafts story after story to begin to weave a picture of her innermost thoughts and feelings. However, Frazey Ford’s biggest strength is being warm enough to draw her audience in while retaining a coolness that keeps us gasping for more.