Maisie Peters live in Manchester Gorilla 23rd August 2021
You are now watching the Taylor Swift generation. If you didn’t know this already you did before Maisie Peters walked on stage as We’re Never Getting Back To Stage was deliberately played loud and in full, the crowd sang every word. The pop landscape has seen an influx of rising stars with guitars breaking through in the past couple of years and they all have one thing in common, Maise, Conan Gray, Olivia Rodrigo, Griff & Baby Queen, aged 18 to 24 all picked up a guitar because of Taylor. They were at the age where you fall in love with music when Taylor was at peak pop and her influence shines through.
Maisie Peters has been releasing music online since 2017 and signed to Atlantic Records a year later, aged 18. Since then she’s released two EPs, grown a fanbase through support tours and YouTube (where she got the attention of Taylor following the cover of Exile with Griff). Earlier this year she released a soundtrack to Apple TV series, Trying (a good album but you knew this wasn’t going to be her best work), 9 new songs with features from James Bay, Griff and Bear’s Den, whilst working on this, she was also busy with her debut album, You Signed Up For This, the first release from Ed Sheeran’s record label, Gingerbread Man Records. If you thought you spent lockdown productively, ask Maisie how hers was…
In the week leading up to the release of You Signed Up For This Maisie headed out on tour with a stop off at Gorilla in Manchester, an intimate venue that will no doubt seem tiny once she stops becoming ‘rising star’ and just ‘star’. This was the first gig I’ve been to since Gabrielle Aplin at The Wardrobe in Leeds on the 12th March 2020, I’d been counting down to this moment for too long.
There was a long line of mostly teenage girls outside of Gorilla as doors opened and once the venue was packed with excitement two-girl group Tommy Lefroy hit the stage for their second ever gig, the first being the day before and you could kinda tell. The pair, from Canada and America, now living in LA and London started writing together before the pandemic and spent lockdown continuing with the project over Zoom. After bumping into Maisie they connected (you can see them in the video for Psycho) and now they are playing in front of people for the first time…
Once We’re Never Getting Back Together finished, Maisie strolled on stage smashing through a set of pop bangers and acoustic love stories, from her back catalogue as well as new material from the forthcoming debut. The crowd sang every word they knew, even from the likes of Volcano, which only appeared online a few days before. Older singles Place Where We Were Made and Sad Girl Summer felt anthemic as the day-oners went in hard whilst new banger Psycho sent the room into a frenzy and closing number John Hughes Movie ended the show with Maisie grabbing the guitar and having her moment one last time.
She might be just 5ft 1' but the 21 year old singer already has a strong back catalogue, a promising debut album, good bant and great stage presence. Maybe she’ll inspire the kids in the crowd to pick up a guitar like Taylor did.
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