by Jon Turner
Madison Cunningham played to a sold-out crowd at Bimbo’s in San Francisco on the first night of Ace Tour.
Cunningham, a veteran of the Los Angeles indie rock scene, opened the tour in support of her third full-length record, Ace. Departing from the guitar (and specifically the rubber bridge), guitar-driven debut “Who Are You Now” and “Revealer,” Ace is a more intricately arranged record that often finds Cunningham behind the piano. Collaborators on the record include many of her usual coconspirators which, in addition to stable quartet for her recent tours, includes a recent collaborative album with Andrew Bird, a long collaboration with the producer Tyler Chester, the singer songwriter Sam Weber, Remi Wolfe, as well as John Mayer (who Cunningham toured in support of in 2024) and Robin Pecknold of Fleet Foxes.
On stage at Bimbo’s, though, Cunningham was without her usual quartet or any other star collaborators. Instead, for much of the show, she faced Jesse Chandler, a multi-instrumentalist who features prominently on Ace. Throughout the set, Chandler moved seamlessly between covering Pecknold’s homophonic melody lines on “Wake” and playing bass clarinet, clarinet, flute, keyboards, and an array of pedals and loopers, all of which created an enveloping, unique sonic environment for the new material.
Pausing to introduce Chandler in a largely banter-free set, Cunningham noted how nice it was to share the stage with someone she “actually respects.” Pausing to address the uncomfortable silence that fell on the room, she added: “I stand by that. Some people you just… tolerate.” On stage without any of her usual collaborators, she launched into the next song before anyone in the audience could ask her to spill the tea.
Amidst plastic foliage and paper machete rocks, the two rendered new arrangements of the record, opting to play it nearly in its entirety, pulling only two songs from Cunningham’s back catalogue.
Listen to Ace here.
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