Demi Marriner likens her four-song set to a “speed date.” And the woman who will later sparkle to the right of Elles Bailey does so here too.
A Black Country girl, there’s something about returning to her roots to play these type of shows, just her and her acoustic. Reminiscent, perhaps, of those open mic nights at the Dog and Doublet all those years ago.
Marriner has a superb voice, as “Sins” off her last record and “Repeat Refrain” from her upcoming one prove.
Her new single, “Need To Know,” had been played on Planet Rock’s lunchtime show that day (I must look up who the presenter was…). It too is a cracker, while the unreleased last one, “Good Guy Act,” seems to, let’s say, come from the heart.
A 20-minute audition to “see if you want another date with me,” she reckons, but on talent alone, Demi Marriner is already out of our league.
One of the reasons you can’t help but love Elles Bailey is the care she puts into these shows. She handpicks the support bands and also introduces them on stage.
True Strays are from her town of Bristol, and although they explain they’ve had a “long day,” this half an hour surely makes up for it.
“Desert Sound” and “Cold Heart, Black River” are both from this year’s EP but are, moreover, Americana of the very highest order—the haunting solo on the latter alone explains that, but elsewhere they are superb too.
“Hail The Haunted” showcases their older material to an audience that is largely unfamiliar, and Marriner joins them for the Calexico-flavoured “Campesina,” on which the organ from Johnny Henderson (who they share with Bailey) shines.
The headline act herself appears for “Let Your Heart Lead The Way,” and not for the last time tonight, you reflect on the warmth of the show. True Strays most definitely seem at home.
“Sit back, buckle up, enjoy the ride.” It’s thoroughly decent of Elles Bailey to write a hook line that essentially is the review in a nutshell, but only when you watch her can you get a true sense of the depth of her material.
One minute she’s vamping it up like the E-Street Band doing a soul revue on “Hole In My Pocket”; the next, she’s telling everyone she’s working on “believing I’m enough” before “Love Yourself.”
That opening line, though, holds a greater truth. “Enjoy The Ride” is the opening track on her incredible “Beneath The Neon Glow” record, and all of that is played over the course of the next hour and 45 minutes.
It is, in honesty, one long highlights reel, but “Leave A Light On” is deeply personal, while “Ballad Of A Broken Dream” might well be the best song she’s ever written.
It’s tempting to imagine Elles in the ’70s creating her music and appearing on the Old Grey Whistle Test, a thought that “1972” and the utterly gorgeous “Silhouette On A Sunset” do nothing to assuage. Somehow her music is so timeless that’s where it belongs.For this tour, she’s dusted off “Hell Or High Water,” and it belongs, but it’s the “…..Glow” songs that form the bedrock. “Let It Burn,” for example, is an arena-sized banger.
Never mind anything else, Bailey is a natural on that stage. “The Game” shines as a result, and she’s sassy when it needs to be. Woe betide the fella from “If This Is Love,” is all I’m saying.
More than anything, though, she just has wonderful songs, like “Riding Out The Storm,” and if, while playing it, she realizes that she can’t run and bash a tambourine at the same time, then that only proves she’s mortal like the rest of us.
The encore is glorious. “Turn Off The News” is a sad one with truly wonderful harmonies, and she adds in John Prine’s “Angel From Montgomery,” which had lost out in the audience vote earlier because “it fills my soul” before the rock n roll of “Sunshine City” gives her astonishing band – Joe Wilkins’ guitar is right in the spotlight, even if he avoids it – to shine one last time.
Give or take a couple of days, it is the third anniversary of when I first saw Elles Bailey play. She was good then, but watching her now is to watch a truly special performer right at the top of her game.
Tonight was being filmed. It was Oscar-winning.
