KT Tunstall is popular.

A No. 9 debut for her sophomore CD Drastic Fantastic, numerous television appearances, as well as performances at the Nobel Peace Prize Concert and last year’s Live Earth affirm that. So the opportunity’s there to create some U2-level grandiosity in the live setting. Instead, Tunstall’s first U.S. jaunt for Drastic Fantastic is called the “Campfire Tour.”

Why? Logistics for one. Her shows in the U.K. have been “a big affair” — featuring a seven-person band plus a couple backup singers.

“When you have seven people you have to have two tour buses,” Tunstall says. “It becomes a really huge operation. I’m much more a fan of being a [small] team rather than a traveling circus.”

Yet the campfire setting seems contrary to the amped-up folk gracing Drastic Fantastic.

“The new album took quite a leap in terms of style and really utilized my love of electric guitar,” Tunstall says. “But it will always be a big passion of mine to play acoustically — but also rocking out acoustically and not just loving it for the balladry that naturally comes from [it].”

The tour’s theme stems from a film Tunstall and her band made for the deluxe version of Drastic Fantastic. They literally played the songs acoustically around a campfire and hid microphones in their clothes.

“It was very affirming,” Tunstall says. “I would argue it’s a bit more musical than the big electric show. It’s definitely got more obvious subtleties to it. And it’s a lot more challenging as players. When you’re playing the same thing again and again, it’s always key to challenge yourself.”

Tunstall knows a bit about that. Popular success was slow in coming for the 33-year-old Scot, who spent a decade as a struggling musician. Her full-length debut Eye to the Telescope was slow to gain footing. Like many of her contemporaries, it took TV — an appearance on Britain’s Later With Jools Holland and a Katherine McPhee performance of her song “Black Horse and the Cherry Tree” on American Idol — to push Tunstall over the hump. If anything, delayed gratification has given her more appreciation.

“There’s definitely something to be said for being a bit older in terms of having your priorities straight — knowing what you want and more importantly knowing what you don’t want out of it,” Tunstall says.