Three stripped-back nights became four within hours. Here is why the residency format is the hardest — and most honest — test a new song can face.
Lia Patel opened the Larkspur Sessions residency with a setlist that changed every night — verses rewritten at soundcheck, bridges borrowed from the audience’s shouted suggestions. The format strips away production and leaves the songwriting exposed, which is exactly the point.
“A residency audience hears the song grow across nights. By night three they sing the bridge back at you.”
The added fourth date focuses entirely on unreleased material: six new songs, performed once, recorded to two-track for the archive. Residency ticket holders get first access to the resulting live EP when it lands in the shop this winter.