Live music with Liz Crosthwaite: Emmy The Great at South Hill Park
Published 7 Oct 2011 09:30
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On Thursday night at South Hill Park, Bracknell, Emmy The Great and the funfair were both in town. I opted for Emmy.
Opening salvos came from modern folk musician Sam Brookes, from Bracknell, whose music is less a playmate for the good times than a warm duvet to reach for in times of melancholy, and Kent's It Hugs Back, who mix wall of sound atmospherics and a hefty nod to 90s shoegazing with brilliantly energetic drums and low-key vocals.
For some reason I always picture Emmy super-casual, in jeans and a T-shirt, so when she glided onstage in a floor-length gown, dressed more for a ball than a gig, it was clear she was trying to send a message. This girl has grown up. I suppose having your fiancé abandon you after a religious conversion will do that to you.
Luckily, this didn't mean she was chucking her first album's songs out with the Converse All Stars. Opening solo with a bewitching new track, Eastern Maria, Emmy held the seated, silent audience in the palm of her hand from the off.
Backed later by her youthful band, she mixed the old and the new, with the definitions in sound between the two as clear as a line in the sand. The almost sickly-sweet yet slightly sinister We Almost Had A Baby ran up against Trellick Tower and the sublime Paper Forest (In The Afterglow Of Rapture) - moving, intense, and scattered liberally with angry religious references - her signature fragile voice conveying subtle humour, sultriness, vitriol and heart-wrenching hurt with unexpected strength.
In a set smattered with new songs that could grow into favourites (plus a rather dodgy Weezer cover that wanted to be ironic but just missed the mark) the closing trio of Two Steps Forward, 24 and MIA harked back to her early sound - with just the right balance of sweetness to sour that makes Emmy so, well, great.
This article appeared in Royal Borough Observer 07 Oct 11
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