Barefoot, and accompanied acoustically by Ryan, Skye Bishop is three days removed from finishing school when she walks onto the stage. By the time she leaves, it feels as though something else might just be beginning.
She calls her music “diary pop”, and the description fits. These are songs drawn from a young life, but delivered with a voice and maturity that often seem far beyond her years.
There is a wonderful full-circle moment, too. Bishop used to cover Chris Isaak’s “Wicked Game” as a little girl; now she is opening for him.
“Lonely” deals in teenage love, while “Helpless” is altogether more poignant. Written about her grandad in Michigan, and the knowledge that any visit might be the last, it is beautifully vulnerable.
“Ugly” tackles the pressure social media creates to look attractive, while “Love” again showcases a sound with remarkable depth.
“Good” gets a few people dancing, before “Free” closes things out. It is a song that could only have been written by someone who has the world at her feet and every possibility still ahead.
School’s out, then. The next chapter has started rather well.
Chris Isaak has a line he returns to a couple of times at De Montfort Hall. “Are you ready for some semi-professional entertainment?” he asks.
His reasoning is simple. Taylor Swift is a professional. He is just a fella in a sparkly jacket.
That, naturally, is nonsense.
You do not stay in this business for 40 years on jokes and sequins alone, and over the course of a wonderful night in Leicester, Isaak offers a masterclass in timeless rock ’n’ roll.
“Beautiful Homes” starts things with energy, Isaak glittering under the lights and MV fave JD Simo’s guitar already sounding like it has been transported from another age. Then comes “Somebody’s Crying” and that voice. That iconic voice, with Michael Webb’s piano adding the colour.
“Here I Stand” sees Isaak head out into the crowd, revealing on his travels that he wasn’t allowed to eat crisps as a kid, so he feels a kinship with the home of Walkers “Don’t Leave Me On My Own” is sung just behind MV before he makes his way back to the stage as “Diddley Daddy” turns into a guitar trade-off.
“I Want Your Love” finds the band showing off the dance steps they have apparently worked on especially for Leicester, and then comes “Wicked Game” – the song every metal band in the world covers when it wants to prove it has a sensitive side. And its a genuine classic, let’s be fair.
“Go Walking Down There” sees Isaak demand everyone stand up. “This is a rock ’n’ roll show,” he says.
And it is.
Although “Speak Of The Devil” takes things into darker territory, before Roy Orbison’s “Oh, Pretty Woman” proves Isaak to be a fine interpreter of other people’s songs too – even ones that are difficult to get wrong.
The acoustic guitars appear for the melancholy of “Forever Blue”, while “Two Hearts” brings out the accordion and gives things a Latin feel. That looseness carries into “Baby What You Want Me To Do”, while “Dancin’” swings and grooves on Chris Powell’s drumming.
“Killing The Blues”, written by bassist Rowland Salley, is gorgeous, and the run through “Only The Lonely”, “Can’t Help Falling In Love” and “Blue Hotel” makes the lineage obvious.
“Blue Hotel” still sounds like one of those songs that was somehow born a classic, while “San Francisco Days” has a wistful quality all of its own. “Lie To Me” underlines just how majestic this band is, and Simo’s solo deserves special mention.
“Big Wide Wonderful World” brings the main set to a properly bluesy close.
The encore begins with “Baby Did A Bad Bad Thing”. Isaak reappears in an even shinier suit, women from the audience are invited onstage and the band slips into the Bond theme along the way.
“Can’t Do A Thing (To Stop Me)” turns soulful, while there is something just a little unsettling about “Black Flowers”. “Wrong To Love You” lets the guitars ring with that timeless sound again, before “Shake Your Hips” does exactly what it says on the tin, helped by a woman from the crowd doing precisely that.
Then, after a night that has somehow been uplifting despite so many broken hearts, “Blues Stay Away From Me” wails into the darkness and “The Way Things Really Are” ends the evening with a break-up.
Isaak had made another throwaway remark earlier in the set. “If you like sad songs,” he smiled, “and unrequited love, then brother, you’ve hit the motherlode.”
You need more than that and a sparkly suit to keep you in the business for 40 years, though.
There is a line that runs directly from the moment Elvis walked into Sun Studios to sing a song for his mum to what happened here tonight.
Chris Isaak is part of it.
