Martin Sexton brings Live Wide Open back to the Brooklyn Arts Center

The singer-songwriter returns to the old church on North Fourth Street on Wednesday, March 10, for the first time since 2021.

The Brooklyn Arts Center was built as a church, and for some singers that matters more than for others. Martin Sexton is one of the ones it matters for. His whole reputation rests on his vocal range and his live shows, and on Wednesday, March 10, 2027, at 8 p.m., he's back in that room at 516 N. Fourth St. Tickets are through eTix.

It's his first Wilmington show since May 16, 2021, also at the Brooklyn Arts Center. That's nearly six years, and the venue's calendar now carries the listing: Cardinal Entertainment Group presents Martin Sexton – Live Wide Open 2027 Tour.

The tour name is the hook. Live Wide Open is Sexton's double live album, released on his own independent label, KTR, recorded at shows across America and mixed by John Alagia. This run marks its 25th anniversary. It's a fitting record to tour, because a live album is the format Sexton is known for: he's a singer whose concerts are the main event and whose records try to catch what happens on stage. Touring a live record's anniversary amounts to touring the idea of his live show itself.

The Wilmington date is part of a run through the Southeast in March. Listings put him at The Mockingbird for the Peace Center on March 11–12, at Eddie's Attic in Decatur, Ga., on March 13, and at the Ellis Theater in Philadelphia, Miss., on March 18. Wilmington gets the first night of that stretch, on a Wednesday, which suits a listening show: the people who come out midweek usually came to hear him.

Sexton's own site describes him as a singer-songwriter known for his vocal range and his live shows, and that's what to expect.

The venue has a lot to do with why this is worth leaving the house for. The building at the corner of Fourth and Campbell in the Brooklyn neighborhood holds 750 standing, and its main hall keeps the bones of the old sanctuary. It works as a wedding venue most weekends and a concert room the rest of the time. For an acoustic performer that combination of high ceilings, hard surfaces and a crowd that stays close to the stage is hard to beat downtown.

Wilmington has a solid songwriter crowd, and the 2021 show here came at a time when any live music felt like an event. This one will be different: a full tour with a record behind it, a midweek night, and a performer who has had six years to decide what to do with that room the next time around.

Get there early enough to find a spot with a view. A Wednesday in March on North Fourth Street is a fine excuse to eat downtown first and then hear one person fill an old church.

Sources: Brooklyn Arts Center event calendar (Cardinal Entertainment Group presents Martin Sexton – Live Wide Open 2027 Tour) (brooklynartsnc.com); Brooklyn Arts Center: Contact & Location (brooklynartsnc.com); Brooklyn Arts Center: Full History (brooklynartsnc.com); eTix: Martin Sexton Live Wide Open Tour, Wilmington (etix.com); Martin Sexton: Live Wide Open (martinsexton.com); Martin Sexton official site (martinsexton.com); Peace Center: Martin Sexton Live Wide Open Tour (peacecenter.org)