PALOMA FAITH // USHER HALL, EDINBURGH
Paloma Faith brings her
‘ The Age Of Optimisim Summer Tour ‘
to Edinburgh’s Usher Hall
★★★★★ (5/5)
PALOMA FAITH // USHER HALL EDINBURGH - 02.06.2022
PHOTOCREDIT: STUART WESTWOOD PHOTOGRAPHY
Is Paloma Faith the hardest working person in British music? Her gig in Edinburgh is the second in her Age of Optimism tour which sees her gigging until August. By then she will have completed 50 post pandemic gigs in a calendar year. She’s also one of the UK’s most successful female artists with a record three double platinum albums. A record she shares with Adelle and Sade.
13 years on from her first album, which earned her a Brit Award nomination, she has an amazing back catalogue to pull on and the Edinburgh crowd were buzzing with excitement as she took the stage. The band appeared as shadows on a backlit voile and the audience were on their feet as the diminutive, pixie shadow of the singer appeared.
The band are Sam Lewis, guitar, Daisy Palmer, drums, Peter Daley, keys, Andrea Goldworth, bass and synths and singers Shanice Steel and NYM. BB Bones the band’s multi-instrumentalist, who died of cancer only last week, remained a strong presence throughout the gig with recordings of his past performances in the mix of many of the songs.
The crowd were out to enjoy themselves from the off, the age-range a reflection of the singers broad appeal.
A great cheer for the opening bars of Gold kicked off the night and we were away. You could see how tight this band are from the off. Goldsworth’s bass and Palmer’s drums driving the pace and supporting the stunning musicianship from the others. Of course, the audience joined in with every word, hands clapping above their heads from the front to the back of this beautiful building.
A change of pace saw Faith release the soulful Last Night on Earth a song which matches her hope for the evening, to give the audience a chance to escape from the outside world and immerse themselves in the music and fun. The vocals were stunning from the harmonies to the tick, tick, tick hook of the chorus.
A Chic sharp riff on Sam Lewis’ Telecaster announced the disco driven Monster, her current single. This is a full throated pop song which Paloma threw her all into delivering, stomping around like a fairy Frankenstein in the catchy chorus. Towards its climax, guitarist Sam took centre stage with a growling solo which ended with him on his knees with ‘monster’ Paloma looming over him. The crowd was on its feet again.
They stayed on their feet as Faith’s plaintive first line of Picking Up the Pieces, ‘Do you think of her when you’re with me?’ rang out. Her first song to reach the top 10 is one of her most moving and shows of her talent as a songwriter. ‘Do you wish I was a bit more like her?’ Wow – no you’re crying! But the band then drives this song into a thumping chorus that has the crowd pogoing in time and Paloma stomp dancing like a kid at a wedding.
Cry Baby, a single from 2017, was next up and the audience were literally dancing in the aisles. This Soul Jazz vibe showcased Faith’s vocal versatility and the live performance takes a
Sunday afternoon laidback vibe and gives it a rougher edge. It got a great reception.
In a personal moment, Paloma shares that she believes that Infinite Things is her best album and her favourite. The album was written during lockdown and is very self-reflective whilst maintaining her witty writing. The next song, Me Time, is a perfect example from the album and mirrors the claustrophobia we felt at stuck at home. ‘Everyone's talking, telling me what I should be.
Pushing and pulling, can you just let me breathe’ She starts in a low register under slung by Peter Daley’s precise jazz piano to give her the vocal space for her to hit the soaring highs of the chorus. The vocalists bang out the hooks and it looks like a future favourite.
Just Be from the 2012 Fall to Grace was down to Faith and Daley, purely piano and vocals with the sweet chorus and Etta James style crescendo of a chorus. The audience was rapt singing along and shooshing in time.
Faith used this change of pace to introduce a medley of favourite tracks, sung around the ‘Joanna’. First up was a cut back version of her first single Stone Cold Sober followed by Black and Blue, a blues ballad straight out of the 70s showcasing a voice made to power though each verse. The medley is wrapped up with another bluesy song, Freedom, which ends with all the band back on stage ready to move into another crowd pleaser Upside Down. Its Cab Calloway tongue in cheek 30s style was another winner with now everyone joining in and on their feet.
You can feel the momentum building as the anthemic New York, with its swooping gospel chorus, has us all in church! The drums and bass are thundering, driving the pace and the audience. A belter.
The band has been through a terrible trauma last week with the death of their friend and bandmate BB Bones, and Paloma took time out to talk about him and their friendship and how integral he’d been to the new album. Three songs were written about him, Is this Goodbye and Supernatural. The band played the third Beautiful and Damned. The painful lyrics reflecting the hurt felt by them all ‘This could be the last time that we spend this time together. I want you to know that you have earned your place in heaven. And I know you might feel alone but darling, you're not ever.’ BB was a huge Price fan, and the song has a strong Paisley Park vibe.
The next tune started with a violin, evocative of a 30s Berlin club, with a militaristic snare drum in attendance. Play On is quirky, fun tune showing another facet of Faith’s unique voice culminating in a bombastic choral chorus.
Paloma shared that she always liked to showcase a fellow woman artist by covering one of their songs. On the last tour it was Chaka Khan. Tonight it was to be Another Little Piece of my Heart, a song made famous by the peerless Janice Joplin in the 60s. Talk about setting a high bar. She told us she was daunted by it, but she shouldn’t have been. Good grief, she has some voice. Sweeter than Joplin’s without the cigarette and whisky, 2am growl of the original but a show stopping, barnstorming version that had the room bouncing.
How do you follow that? Well by blasting through Living with a Stranger, a further track from the new album. Driven along by Andrea Goldworth’s amazing bass playing the song reflects the claustrophobic nature of relationships when we had to be together 24/7. Faith and the band were obviously having the best time dancing along tighter to the funk rhythms.
So here we were at the last song, the track Lullaby which, as a single was recorded with Sigala. It was a great song with a ‘Scream if you want to go faster’ dance feel, leaving the crowd wanting more – which they quickly got – with the band bouncing back on stage for an encore.
Out of the stalls shot the co-written with Pharrell Williams Can’t Rely on You. Straight out of the James Brown song book, this soul-funk track from 2014 got the encore off to a pace setting start with the audience getting into the groove. Sigma’s great Changing which featured Paloma on vocal’s was up next. Globally popular, the song has had over 61 million plays on YouTube. Hammering in at 170 beats per minute it had the audience, and the whole band, bouncing along.
There was only one song that the crowd wanted to end the night, and they got it. A huge cheer went up for the opening chords of Only Love Can Hurt Like This. Faith asked that phone lights were switched on and the room lit up with fairy lights. It was a special moment. The band were whipped along by drums, bass and keys to a falsetto crescendo and finish. The crowd roared their approval and the night was over.
Paloma Faith is a musical magpie, influenced by a huge range of musicians from jazz divas like Ella Fitzgerald through, Motown, 70s disco and 80s pop, and she has an amazing unique voice. It’s been a long time since her 2009 debut and, like all artist, she must, at times, reflect on her relevance in the fast changing, short memory music world. She has a strong back catalogue and with Infinite Things she has answered the challenge and has an album very much of its time with some great songs. Just as important is that her concert was fun, inclusive and had the audience on its feet in minutes and they stayed up and danced for an hour and a half. She obviously loves playing live and it’s infectious.
REVIEW BY // GRAEME WHITE
PHOTOS BY // STUART WESTWOOD PHOTOGRAPHY
SETLIST:
USHER HALL, EDINBURGH
Gold
Last Night on Earth
Monster
Picking up the Pieces
Cry Baby
Me Time
Just Be
Stone Cold Sober/Black and Blue/Freedom Medley
Upside Down
New York
Beautiful and Damned
Play On
Another Little Piece of My Heart
Living with a Stranger
Can’t Rely on You
Changing
Only Love Can Hurt Like This