Little Lord Street Band celebrates ‘milestone’ with first Blues at Bridgetown show

Perth-based The Little Lord Street Band will celebrate 10 years as a band with their debut performance at the Blues at Bridgetown Festival this week.

Lead vocalist and guitarist Natasha Shanks said the band had dreamt about performing at the iconic festival for more than a decade.

The band will get to live out that dream this week, with the festival hosted over three days from November 8.

“We’re expecting the full five piece, even a special guest on stage, because it’s our 10 years of the band,” Shanks said.

“The festival itself calls for the biggest show we’ve got this year, so we’re excited,

“We can expect one very large pregnant lady on stage, which will be me.”

Despite being pregnant with her second son, Shanks is not one to miss out. She said has been performing with her partner James Rogers since the very beginning.

Shanks said from rehearsing in bedrooms, open mic nights to and playing at local community festival stages, Blues at Bridgetown had always been an “elusive festival” for the band.

Starting out a folk act, the band’s music has evolved into a country rock Americana-style over the decade.

“We’ve evolved as songwriters, but also as musicians, and there’s still three of the original band members in the band, which is awesome. We’re all kind of grown together in that way

“We’ve grown from a four piece to a five piece, to a six piece, back to a five piece over the decade.”

The five piece includes Michael Savage on back vocal and bass, while Alex Megaw is on percussion, and Jon Fernandes plays the keys and organ.

Among the milestones this year, the band released their latest sophomore album called Time and Place which came out on April 22.

The first part of the album was started in Nannup in a little studio at a friend’s house, Shanks said.

“There’s so much to foster in that space where we all just have some time together and play,” she said.

“There’s this post-COVID batch of songs. I feel like you can kind of tell that there’s this parallel.

“There’s definitely a changing of the goal posts (during COVID-19). We got to this point where we had to activate plan B.

“So much has happened in that space because we were forced into a bit of a situation no one could have expected to have happened, and so we kind of got real.

“I feel like that maturity from our younger self and our ego of ‘we’re gonna make it, we’re gonna do these big things’, and now we’re so thankful we still get to do what we love.”

Now, one of the biggest dreams the band has held onto for more than a decade will come true.

“The festival is one huge, big bucket list item as a band,” Shanks said.

“This elusive festival that we’ve yet to play with and be associated with and seen so many of the artists that we’ve been inspired by over the years play at this festival in Bridgetown.

“The band’s excited to get away and hang out and play music together, which is another aspect of our musicianship that has kind of carried us through the decade.

“We still really enjoy hanging out, playing music together, so I can’t wait to finish the year off with that energy.”