Being locked in the dressing room is not, by any sane metric, the ideal start to a show. But then Sari Schorr has never really struck me as the sort to let something as trivial as that derail her. If anything, it merely added to the drama before she walked out at KK’s Steel Mill tonight and let rip with a roar that could probably have been heard halfway down the Black Country. When she spits out the line “Mr Superficial,” the opening number lands all stomp and bombast, and it set the tone for a set that constantly balanced force with feeling.
That has always been one of her great strengths. She can do power, absolutely, but she can also lean hard into the blues when the song demands it. “Ain’t Got No Money,” one of the few older songs aired tonight, had that proper earthy feel to it, the kind of tune that sounds like it has lived a bit before it ever reached the stage. And if there is a sense tonight that she is in transition, that only makes it more fascinating. She is road-testing a whole clutch of new songs, and there is something genuinely brave about that. Most artists would hedge their bets. Schorr just gets on with it.
So “Running Wild,” which she jokes she is not allowed to play yet, comes over as a mid-paced rocker that saves its detonation for the chorus, while “Monday Morning” rolls in like some long-lost Creedence Clearwater Revival cousin, drenched in cowbell and blessed with a loose-limbed keyboard part that gives it real swing. These songs are so fresh she is reading some of the lyrics, but rather than making them feel unfinished it adds to the sense that we are seeing something being built in real time.
There is depth to all of this too. “Better Day” is founded on the idea that a better world starts with us, and in Schorr’s hands that kind of message never feels trite. Then there is “Freedom,” dedicated to the courage of her grandfather fleeing Russia, low and soulful before she opens up vocally and reminds everyone in the room just how much range she possesses. “Man On Fire,” meanwhile, benefits from being allowed to breathe, its more relaxed pace giving the song room to stretch out.
A real high point comes when Rebecca Downes joins her for a cover of “Stormy Monday.” Two singers of that quality trading lines was always likely to be special, and it absolutely was, while Jamie Walker — who is producing the new record — adds a solo from the top drawer. Later, “King Of Rock N Roll,” which Schorr calls her “crossroads song,” underlines just how instinctively she understands the meeting point between rock grandeur and blues soul.
The emotional core of the set may well have been “Ordinary Life,” dedicated to Mike Vernon, whose loss she clearly still feels keenly. It is beautiful, and the piano gives it an extra ache. “Finding My Way” is unusually personal, while “Elevate” gets the line of the night when she laughs that AI would not have thought of it. For all the new material, though, “Valentina” remains everything that is good about Sari Schorr: heart, power, melody, and no little class.
And then the encore takes things somewhere else entirely. “Afterglow,” one of her favourites, has a definite 60s tint, and “Love The One You’re With” sends people out with a positive message that, frankly, feels badly needed right now. It is the perfect closer. In another life, Queens native Sari Schorr is not in Wolverhampton on a spring night in 2026. She is in San Francisco in the 60s with flowers in her hair.
At one point she says, “I feel like I’m on the outside looking in, but I observe,” and insists these songs are still a work in progress. Fair enough. But from where we were standing, watching her tonight, it did not feel tentative at all. It felt like an artist rediscovering exactly who she is, and making sure the rest of us don’t forget it either.
