Paloma Faith LIVE @ De Montfort Hall, Leicester, 14/11/2014

Rating:

It hasn’t gone unnoticed that Paloma Faith is no stranger to extravagant outfits, massive vocals and in this case circular concert halls. If you’re a teenage girl like myself, we all remember when we first heard of this sequined heroine, back in her chick flick acting days, in the halls of St Trinians. Coming a long way since, with 3 albums under her belt, countless stunning singles as well as recently being announced as one of the various famous faces included in this year’s Band Aid money raiser; it was no surprise that everyone was very excited to see what show she would bring to Leicester this Friday night.

Kicking off the evening in Californian folk-pop style was Brett Dennen. His laid-back, somewhat relaxing set washed away a week’s worth of work blues and woke up those from a spreadsheet nightmare. You can’t deny, some acoustic acts can make you feel as if your life is buffering, even more so when they are a support act to an upbeat musician. However, Dennen had a way of engaging the crowd that meant nobody felt like time was lagging. If anything he would have managed another 30 minutes without anybody loosing interest. Gracing the stage with bare feet, his set was simplistic, no tricks, no interesting backdrop just an electric guitar accompaniment in the form of Jamie McClaine. His captivating harmonies, bluesy slide guitar and well crafted, deep-south inspired songs were all he needed to win over a sold out concert hall. Poetically delivered, ‘Ain’t no Reason’ sat comfortably in between up-beat songs where he began to dance a little, to bring a thoughtful contrast of emotions. There were moments in certain songs such as ‘Wild Child’ where it may have been nice to see him with a lager backing band but nonetheless, he filled the high ceiling with an incredibly strong vocal range.

Paloma Faith quite literally danced onto stage with her full band all dressed in a 50s’ style, monochrome uniforms. After showing her appreciation for Brett Dennen, she bounded through track after track of vocal testing tricks waking up the man who fell asleep sitting next to me.

Her set consisted of songs both easily recognisable from countless TV adverts and high chart positions as well as unknown tracks. ‘Picking up the Pieces’ got particular love from the older audience members who had clearly been fans for some time due to their mouthing of even the fasted paced lyrics. This tune is in no doubt one of Paloma’s most famous songs and it really did get a grateful reception. It is fantastic when you are able to go out and see a more mature artist with a back catalogue they are proud to incorporate with promoting their new album. However, at times this was seen as a negative; in this case, became evident around half way through. The problem being there were lulls in enthusiasm from the crowd in places. Not to do with what was happening on stage – that was at a constant high quality – but simply down to the lesser known tunes. Personally, what was slightly discouraging was that the audience seemed to expect the greatest hits but even the lady herself did say that she was to play a majority of new material. When the popular songs ended, excitement seemed to filter away.

Something that is evident from the amount of public praise she gives them is that she really values her backing band, Stepping aside; she gave them the spotlight a countless number of times during the evening, letting them show off what they do best. She was particularly sure to show her appreciation for her three singers which when it came to her cover of the Motown classic ‘River Deep, Mountain High’. This was not the only cover performed. Brett Dennen was invited back onto stage to duet with Paloma, singing the beautifully written ‘Crazy Love’ by Van Morrison.

The only thing that was missing from Paloma’s set was her rendition of Etta James’ ‘I Would Rather Go Blind’ – after seeing multiple clips of her singing this at previous shows, it was rather disappointing that it didn’t make the cut. She’s back out on tour in the first quarter of next year with American rhythm and blues band, Vintage Trouble. Maybe Faith and lead Ty Taylor will perform together again; we will have to wait until next year to find out.