Editor’s Pick: Wild Hearts Tour at Wolf Trap
Sharon Van Etten, Angel Olsen, Julien Baker, and Quinn Christopherson share a Wolf Trap bill for a concert to remember.
Next week, Sharon Van Etten will be the odd woman out as the only non-queer performer at a concert at Wolf Trap also featuring Angel Olsen, Julien Baker, and Quinn Christopherson.
Van Etten, the indie-rock goddess and sometime actress (Netflix’s The OA), is touring in support of her sixth album, We’ve Been Going About This All Wrong, featuring sharp and pithy songs written at the height of the pandemic and touching on the world-ending hysteria of that time.
Last year, the New Jersey native recruited Olsen to record the duet “Like I Used To,” described by Pitchfork as a song that “feels momentous, predestined to be a crowd-pleasing set closer.”
Whether Van Etten and Olsen actually perform a live rendition of the song is anybody’s guess. But Olsen will perform from what is also her sixth and newest album.
Released in June, Big Time is notable for serving as the Missouri-born artist’s first album to reflect on her recent coming-out journey as a late-blooming gay — at the age of 34 — and she’s already experienced same-gender love and heartbreak, as she relates in song.
Joining Van Etten and Olsen for what will be the kick-off to a joint “Wild Hearts Tour” is Julien Baker.
The 26-year-old Tennessee native tours in support of her third studio album, last year’s critically praised Little Oblivions, a dramatic departure from the acoustic alt-rock of her first two sets.
The new album was recorded with a larger backing band and sound, including a drummer, making a fuller and expanded sound that pushes Baker in the direction of previously unexpected genres including alt-rock, electronic music, and pop punk.
Quinn Christopherson, a Native Alaskan trans man who won NPR’s Tiny Desk Concert in 2019, will warm up the crowd with his growing body of haunting, synth-boosted quiet storm songs, including a preview of tracks from his forthcoming album Write Your Name in Pink, due in September.
Thursday, July 21, at 7:30 p.m. at the The Filene Center at Wolf Trap, 1551 Trap Road, Vienna.
Tickets are $32. Call 877-WOLFTRAP or visit www.wolftrap.org.
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