Maisie Peters Sings Ed Sheeran & Taylor Swift

The 21-year-old British pop singing-songwriting sensation brought high energy, infectious, candy-coated tunes, a fierce grrrl power perspective, and her vibrant three-piece backing band to the 22 March proceedings, reeling off 16 songs in less than 60 minutes. The audience that skewed youthful, participatory, and notably female loved every second of it, bursting at the seams to welcome the Marvelous Miss Maisie for her first Denver appearance on a monthlong North American tour.



After Jonah Kagen’s quietly effective 30-minute acoustic opening with two bandmates stirred the pot just enough, the crowd kicked it up a notch with their a cappella rendition of Taylor Swift’s “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together” before Peters even reached the stage. Starting with the title cut and three more from You Signed Up for This — Peters’ 2021 debut full-length album — she paved the way for the crowd’s boisterous singalongs following the recorded introduction from Ferris Bueller‘s Day Off‘s “Life moves pretty fast” scene.

That swell didn’t let up as the vivacious, soaring songbird whirled and twirled back and forth across the stage while keeping her cool and playing it smart. Early on, she covered her recently dyed platinum blonde locks with a hat, perhaps to signify this initial Western swing date during her first headlining run through North America. At five-foot-one, as she attests in the title cut that kicked off the show, the petite Peters is standing tall as the sellouts stack up before the April Fools’ Day grand finale, the second of two full-house nights at Los Angeles’ El Rey Theatre.



That’s a long way from teen-busking on the streets of Brighton, a town on the south coast of England where she grew up with twin sister Ellen, about a two-hour drive to London. Their sweet sibling bond is evident in YouTube videos, including the one Maisie (who sometimes calls herself Mazzie) made for her song “Brooklyn”, a fond remembrance of a New York trip they took together as 19-year-olds.

Grabbing an acoustic guitar for the wistful, vividly descriptive “Outdoor Pool”, the fourth YSUFT number in a row to start the show, she broke the streak with the 2017 single “Place We Were Made”, a warm and fuzzy toast to small-town halcyon days. Informing the audience that the soft ballad was “the first song I ever wrote,” her comment — like many others — was met with whoops, hollers and cheers.