bReview: Folk Bitch Trio
at The Tuning Fork, Friday 26 September 2025
Written by Alex Fox
Photography by Nico Rose Penny
When Folk Bitch Trio, followed by Georgia Knight, performed short and sweet sets at the station [95bFM] on Friday afternoon, I knew I was in for a treat. As it turns out, ‘treat’ would be a massive understatement.
While next door, The Rock 2000 live at Spark Arena was defining what it is to listen to music in Aotearoa (apparently), The Tuning Fork was an All-Naarm Affair. Hailing from Melbourne, Folk Bitch Trio features the talents of Heide Peverelle, Gracie Sinclair, and Jeanie Pilkington. Their new album, Now Would Be A Good Time, was recorded here in Tāmaki Makaurau.
Opener Georgia Knight also comes from Melbourne originally. For the live performance, it's just Knight and her weapon of choice: an autoharp. While sure, not the most usual instrument, and admittedly a surprise when I first saw it, Knight plays and uses it perfectly. With a performance not unlike if Hope Sandoval or Beth Gibbons was transported into a fantasy world, Knight balances the enchanting nature of the instrument with an eerie and emotive vocal performance that creates an interesting sense of unease. The performance was stopped roughly in the middle for Knight to speak of recent experiences moving here to Aotearoa. A tale of printing at The Warehouse leads to a mid-set poem written by an old man in line with her, met with applause. For her final song, Knight brought out a phone: to be more specific, an old landline phone that she uses to modify her voice. In the words of Folk Bitch Trio themselves, Knight’s support was “an honour, a pleasure, and a privilege”.
(Georgia Knight at The Tuning Fork / Photo: Nico Rose Penny)
The main event opened with the trio singing, in harmony, without the backing of any instruments. In many ways, this was the perfect introduction; that same vocal dynamic between the three would be the main star of the show. For their second song, Hotel TV, however, the guitars do come out. There is something both soothing and intense about the tune, with soft vocals and a washed out electric guitar line met by sharp harmonies and a forceful strum on the acoustic. “Very nice to be back” - a line that, as expected in a country like ours, gets an enthusiastic response.
Sinclair picks up guitar duties for their fourth, Moth Song. A song that sees Sinclair singing to herself, encapsulating that feeling when everything just gets a little too much and you start spiralling, it feels wistful and introspective, accompanied by a gently finger-picked guitar. The next song sees Peverelle take over main vocal duties for the first time, with initially sparse but eventually slow and chugging instrumentation. The ending sees the three take a step back from their microphones, the distance twisting their harmonies into one voice. Sinclair takes a moment to apologise, because there’s “Nothing hilarious coming to me off the dome,” which is, ironically, received with laughter.
(Gracie of Folk Bitch Trio at The Tuning Fork / Photo: Nico Rose Penny)
The next song, Foreign Bird, was a favourite of mine, although I’m slightly uncomfortable about the mention of a ‘shotgun’ in relation to birds foreign to Australia while our Bird of the Year competition is ongoing. Of course, the Rock 2000 event couldn’t go unmentioned, with the trio joking that they wish they had a night off to go and listen to Limp Bizkit. Following was single Cathode Ray, featuring echoey and slightly eerie guitar work from Heide, was the last song to get finished on the album, they tell us afterwards, featuring some “really bad verses” that were far from the appropriate calibre. Which, based on the final form we received the song and this performance, is a blessing, because they clearly struck gold.
(Heide of Folk Bitch Trio at The Tuning Fork / Photo: Nico Rose Penny)
Next, Melbourne was invoked yet again, with a cover of Shivers. The break from their newest album was continued with a performance of an older single, Analogue. Easily their most energetic of the night so far, none of the vocal quality and personality was sacrificed in speeding up a little for a song.
The tenth song of the set was “a real bitch to record”. When the call for any Sarahs in the audience was met with a surprisingly low count, the band dedicated the song, Sarah, to the entire audience. The upswing of mood and energy continued in this latter half of the set, before stopping rather abruptly. “Sometimes I’m really funny…” Sinclair assured us, “...this one is a bummer.” The song, Mary’s Playing the Harp, was a melancholy, almost devastating exploration of a distant relationship in the midst of touring.
“In the spirit of Rock and Roll… let's go. And that’s all.”
The final song of the night was, and is, my favourite of theirs. The song, God’s A Different Sword, was a fitting end. The most animated track of the night, the performance encapsulated everything about this trio that makes them seem so magical. Two guitars, three voices, and with Sinclair’s movement in the middle of the stage while she sings acting as a focal point, each of the three is so unique, yet they feel so inseparable. No part is out of place, and everything seems to work so perfectly. This trio is not a disparate collection of three artists, but one, cohesive and harmonious unit that for the duration of a performance that could only feel not long enough, graced The Tuning Fork with some of the best folk music I’ve ever heard.
Without risking another incident of a Kiwi claiming an Australian act, or vice versa, the Southern Hemisphere, in Folk Bitch Trio, has its own mesmerising folk trio, à la Boygenius - but dare I say, better. The last words spoken on the stage, the entirely normal “see you next time,” offer exciting promise. The next time Folk Bitch Trio bless Aotearoa with their presence, if this gig is anything to go by, will be exceptional. And I can only hope I can be there again.
(Jeanie of Folk Bitch Trio at The Tuning Fork / Photo: Nico Rose Penny)
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