Miko Marks and Rissi Palmer Stand Stronger Together

5 Paige Keith 5:18:23.jpg — Miko Marks with Steve Wyreman and Justin Phipps
Photo: Paige Keith

At the final stop of their co-headlining acoustic Miko & Rissi Tour, Miko Marks and Rissi Palmer delivered a heartfelt and warm evening of country, soul and blues to an admiring audience Thursday in The Lounge at City Winery. Ahead of the show, Marks and Palmer told the Scene they were thrilled to get to be onstage together. The familiarity that comes with being in a tour bus (or van) over an extended period can breed contempt, but Palmer told the audience that even after traveling together for the past few weeks, she and Marks were “still friends.”

“And not just ‘still friends,’” Marks said, adding to Palmer’s assessment. “We’re better friends. … We’re stronger together.”

12 Paige Keith 5:18:23.jpg — Miko Marks
Photo: Paige Keith

Palmer noted that they simply flipped a coin to determine who went first each night of the run. Fate determined that Marks would go first Thursday. She and two members of her band — who also happen to be her producers, Justin Phipps and Steve Wyreman — kicked things off with a call to the “Ancestors,” via a song Marks and her group The Resurrectors released in 2021. While the song is normally a bit more playful and upbeat when accompanied by a full band, the live acoustic version was haunting and drawn-out. She kept the vibes coming in an eight-song set that included the swampy and groovy “River” from 2022’s Feel Like Going Home as well as the blues-rock-inspired “Trouble,” an homage to late civil rights icon Rep. John Lewis.

“I hope this inspires you to make good trouble,” Marks told the crowd — which she noted included her 82-year-old godfather Wilbert McAlister, who flew in from California to watch her perform. He was decked out in an ornate gold-and-black Western suit. “Now that man, he is a real cowboy,” Marks said. “He’ll wear that to McDonald’s.”

15 Paige Keith 5:18:23.jpg — Rissi Palmer
Photo: Paige Keith

When Palmer took the stage with her stellar guitarist Charles Newkirk, she noted that it had gotten fairly cold in the room. Before she could finish the sentence, a man from the audience had rushed to the stage to offer his denim jacket, which she wore throughout the show. “Chivalry is not dead,” another man yelled toward the stage before Palmer and Marks performed a tearjerking and gorgeous cover of The Judds’ “Flies on the Butter.”

Palmer headed into her solo set with the song that launched her career, “Country Girl.” She mentioned that she previously had to play a slightly different version of the song, originally released in 2007, because her old label owned it.

“But not now,” Palmer said, smiling. “As of last week, I now own this song.”

Palmer is a dynamic storyteller, bringing her experience in holding an audience during her Color Me Country Radio show to the stage and getting laughs for her expert delivery. Her set included “Love on You,” a song written about her dream man. She told the audience that it was written with a boyfriend she had just broken up with, and called herself the “brown Taylor Swift.”

13 Paige Keith 5:18:23.jpg — Rissi Palmer and Miko Marks
Photo: Paige Keith

Palmer’s song “Seeds” plays on a work by Dinos Christianopoulos, a gay poet who lived in Greece in the late 20th century. He wrote a now-well-known couplet that translates roughly to: “What didn’t you do to bury me / But you forgot that I was a seed.” Palmer took the opportunity to remind the crowd of the dangers of exclusion and of not advocating for their vulnerable community members.

“Anytime we ‘other’ somebody and they try to get rid of ‘other,’” Palmer said, “guess who they’re coming for next?”

She ended her set with “Good Night,” a tune from the children’s album Best Day Ever that she released in 2013. The song could be best described as a gentler, lyrical version of the book Go the Fuck to Sleep.

Then, as the evening drew to a close, Palmer brought Marks to the stage for one last song. You could practically feel the light and warmth — something we could all use more of, even as summer creeps in — radiating from the pair as they sang and danced to their recent collaborative single “Still Here.”