Halestorm: The Living Room Sessions at Vinyl Music Hall

When Halestorm announced Lzzy Hale and Joe Hottinger were going to be touring as a stripped down, acoustic version of the full band, I guess what I expected was songwriters festival style. Two people sitting on bar stools, singing songs and telling stories. And honestly, I would have been happy with that. But that’s not what “Halestorm: The Living Room Sessions” is!

I started seeing some photos from the tour on social a few days before the Pensacola show and I got really excited. Oh, this is going to be pretty! There’s a full-on, actual living room on stage. Big couch, coffee table loaded with drinks, candles everywhere, and a turntable setup behind. (More on that later)

When I pulled up to the venue, the line to get in the door was around the corner and all the way up the next block. By the time the show started, Vinyl was packed from front to back to upstairs. So much love for this band in this town! But not just in this town. While I was in the photo pit before the show, I talked to a couple of people on the rail who drove up from Orlando. And later on during the show, Lzzy shouted out another couple who drove 12 hours to get here. This tour has a short run and it seems people are going to great lengths to catch it.

And I guess I was a little naive also thinking these two were going to sit still on bar stools for an entire show 😄 Now, this was nowhere near full Halestorm intensity but more of a slightly quieter-than-usual rock show which was great because it allowed Lzzy’s voice to shine even brighter and for the lyrics to take center stage. They were both all over the stage for most of the show playing to the crowd and each other. The only sitting being when Lzzy played a few solo piano songs. Songs including Dear Daughter which always brings a tear to this girl-dad’s eyes.

There was no opener so it was kind of an evening with Halestorm. Two sets of roughly an hour each. They went through their hits and covers while telling stories about the songs and about each other throughout. At the end of the first set, Joe went to the turntable and put on some vinyl to keep us entertained during the intermission and Lzzy said get yourself some drinks and we'll be right back. Like we were hanging out in their living room.

The setlist included Halestorm classsics like I Miss the Misery, Here's to Us, Mz Hyde, and Do Not Disturb (which had the nights best origin story.) And there were some great covers. Lady Gaga's Bad Romance, Little Big Town's Girl Crush, Skid Row's I Remember You (She fronted Skid Row for a while last year), and maybe my favorite was covering Jeff Buckley's Lover, You Should've Come Over. I LOVE Jeff Buckley, and Lzzy's version was spectacular.

I photographed Halestorm (the full band) about a decade ago in Mobile, around the same time they won a Grammy. (They tell a great, funny story about that Grammy during the show before launching into “Love Bites, (So Do I)”, the Grammy Award winning song.) Even though I’ve seen them and listened to them and always appreciated their music, it wasn't until this show that I really fell in love with them. You can see so much natural joy coming through. They love their fans, love performing, and love each other and it shows. And oh yeah, that make some crazy good music.

Finishing this up with my favorite photo sequence of the night and some photographic mumbo-jumbo. 😄 There are times when photographing concerts the lighting tech gives you a wash of blue or red and if you add smoke, it can be a challenge to photograph. But if you can embrace it, focus and shoot it anyway, you can get this almost screen printed look. For this quick section of the show, I love how it turned out.

New Halestorm album and full band tour coming this year! Catch them if you can.