We All Love Lucy!
When you have a support bill of Mercury Music Price nominee C Duncan and top new live pop/indie band Flyte you know you are in for a good night and that’s way before Lucy Rose even takes to the stage.
Looking around the room Rae Morris is also here, so we can be sure of a few little ‘surprise guests’ as the night unfolds. Glancing down at the setlist from my vantage point in the photo pit I can see a list of some 18 songs that she will play, so this was close to a two hour set - but boy did it fly by.
This is the last night of a tour that has seen her play everywhere in the UK, but here in Kentish Town it’s probably the biggest audience she has played in front of, outside of a festival or support slot, and far from the early days when she used to turn up to gigs just with her acoustic guitar.
Rose has bloomed (sorry – couldn’t resist!) into a consummate performer, trading acoustic for more electric guitar, and losing that ‘sitting on chair’ comfort zone, preferring now to bounce around the stage, plucking out some pop riffs, whilst keeping charge of the changing tempos mid song, and shaking that blonde hair about.
Tonight we have an added strings section and some guests, support band Flyte join in with harmonies for ‘Like an Arrow’ and the aforementioned Rae Morris for a truly stunning version of ‘My Life’. Rose now offering even more of herself within the lyrical content, as well as trading some beautiful harmonies with her sister-in-law.
Its great to see that she has such confidence to go from a full band sound straight into something singular and introspective like ‘Middle of the Bed’ or ‘Shiver’ without taking a breather, the constant touring in the past two months has clearly honed this to faultless perfection.
Rose is overcome at times with emotion and the normal slight quiver in her vocal increases in vibrato, but still remains pitch perfect. She constantly thanks the crowd and adds “I want to go on to make music for as long as I can and your support keeps me going”. There just isn’t an ounce of diva in this girl, its refreshing, and even though she is playing her biggest show in London to date, Rose keeps to her normal understated tomboy image of tshirt, denim overshirt, jeans and trainers, matching the apparel of most of her audience.
Almost 2 hours goes by in what felt like a quarter of that time and she must have played everything off her latest record ‘Work it Out’ and some of the well known tracks from 1st album ‘Like I Used to”, although personally I’m still missing ‘Night Bus’ as a favourite. During ‘Bikes’ when Rose teases the audience with “listen up, listen here everybody scream out loud”- everybody does, and the biggest smile goes across her face.
Last 2 songs are ‘Work it out’ and the usual ‘Red Face’ to close, its been a great night, quality music from some superb musicians, without celebrity or diva making unwelcome appearances, in their place came emotion and empathy. She loved playing, we loved watching and listening…can we have some more of this please !
COMMENTS
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Watch out for Lucy playing some small acoustic shows next week!
