Jamie N Commons’ backing band numbered four – spread across the rather wide but narrow stage at XOYO… They brought up the folk level in the night’s music while maintaining the rock element – with an American twang – which brought to mind Johnny Cash or some other 60’s voice out of the west of America – possible re-enforced by his choice of a wide brimmed hat!
The theme of the night was clearly – “how many musicians can you get on the stage” – with To Kill a King supplementing their number with members of Professor Penguin to add brass to their sound, bring their number to eight at times… The sound moved more in the direction of folk, and adding elements of Jazz when the Penguins where contributing. The highlight for my was when Ralph Pelleymounter turned to his keyboard for some of the closing numbers of the set.
XOYO was a little more chilled out than it had been the previous evening with none of the stars having yet risen as high as the star of the series of gig presented by Q Magazine so far on Tuesday night….
Looking a little alone on the stage with just a keyboard as support, she soon filled the venue with her soulful Yorkshire pop/rock vocals.
Adding a little country to the pop theme of the night, Jodie Marie quickly replaced Jen on stage – causing a rapid return from the bar for some of the audience!
I’ve not previously been to a gig at the Shepherd’s Bush Empire where the audience paid so much attention to the supporting acts – maybe the change to seating rather than standing in the stalls and allocated seating had something to do with that – but the quality of the performances was a big contributing factor.
I’d previously heard Narina at the launch of her fourth album, Year Of The Wolf, surrounded by fans who’d gained their free tickets by pre-ordering the album, in the much more intimate and smaller Borderline – it was similar audience that occupied the first few rows of seating….
After opening with Butterfly Nerina confessed she was no Tony Bennett when it came to her patter between songs – that maybe the case but musically she’s got a comparable range – from the subtlety of If I lost you now, via the pop of covers of Kylie (Is it a cover if you wrote and produced the song for the princess of pop?) and Beyonce to the rock of Everyone’s Gone to War, then the comedy/romance of Geek Love…
Not sure HR would condone Nerina’s encouragement for “Geek Love” of those on an office outing wishing to avoid a long journey home by allowing beer goggles to determine if the night could end at someone's home closer to the office…
By the end of the night, having earlier confided that her previous gig at the same venue had ended badly and that she’d suffered from “London fear” – a phenomenon were artist dread the leg of their tour in the capital because of the reputation of the London audience to be rather cold and critical, Nerina had clearly over come both barriers and brought the tour to a storming conclusion.
One comment on the night is that I’m not sure if the choice of a seated layout for the stalls was the right one – it felt wrong being seated for many of the up beat periods of Nerina’s performance… The questions that remain are – will Nerina ever make it to Idaho – and has she really been on the road to Damascus? The second is a little off the tourist track at the moment, but any venue in Idaho could do much worse than extend an invitation for Nerina to end her drive at their establishment.
, surrounded by fans who’d gained their free tickets by pre-ordering the album, in the much more intimate and smaller Borderline – it was similar audience that occupied the first few rows of seating…. 