Amy Winehouse @ Carling Academy
a rare and raw gustiness
| 11 Apr 2007
Fresh from success at this year's Brits, the soulful and self-styled songstress Amy Winehouse greets an unusually tame audience at her Academy gig tonight. This session's atypical crowd appears mainly composed of polite thirty-somethings who try out dodgy dance moves during the better-known numbers and exchange niceties about the weather in between these paroxysms of self-expression. This demographic may be attributable in part to the commercially-driven Radio 2 fast track route to fame taken by Winehouse, Melua et al.
Still, as the charts will uphold, there are worse paths to success, and a bit of soul-selling has gone a long way to selling a bit of Soul music to the fickle masses. Ms. Winehouse herself appears an uncharacteristic picture of sobriety tonight; there's little slurring at this party. Highlights to set the feet a-tapping emerge in the form of a show stopping rendition of hit single Rehab and a cover of the Zutons' Valerie.
Though restyled in part for the launch of LP Back to Black, with her now perennial high barnet; her sound is unflinchingly true to its roots, and remains as timeless as her influences. Though she may not bring down the house this time, her talent and originality are clearly placed a cut above the rest, and live performance confirms that her voice has a rare and raw gustiness best heard un-dubbed. [Yasmin Jilaihawi]
Still, as the charts will uphold, there are worse paths to success, and a bit of soul-selling has gone a long way to selling a bit of Soul music to the fickle masses. Ms. Winehouse herself appears an uncharacteristic picture of sobriety tonight; there's little slurring at this party. Highlights to set the feet a-tapping emerge in the form of a show stopping rendition of hit single Rehab and a cover of the Zutons' Valerie.
Though restyled in part for the launch of LP Back to Black, with her now perennial high barnet; her sound is unflinchingly true to its roots, and remains as timeless as her influences. Though she may not bring down the house this time, her talent and originality are clearly placed a cut above the rest, and live performance confirms that her voice has a rare and raw gustiness best heard un-dubbed. [Yasmin Jilaihawi]