I don’t know whether Kezia Gill makes a habit of opening for hotly tipped UK country bands, but I can tell you that the last time I saw her she was fulfilling the same role as tonight for The Shires. Reading my review of that night almost two years ago, I am struck by the fact that although she plays some of the same songs, she seems a much better performer – which considering how good she was in the first place is no mean feat. Here, playing songs from all three off her albums (“that way you have to buy them all” she jokes) what makes her so good is that they all mean something to her. “Country Song” sees her in Nashville (this is meant as a compliment to say that she doesn’t sound like she’s from her native Derby when she sings) “I’m Here” is a touching anthem to mental health, but best of all is the song she plays for her father. She lost him four years ago this week and “Price Of Losing You” is both a wonderful and fitting tribute. In between these, she airs the title track of her most recent record. “Misfit” is her anthem to playing the music you want to play no matter what it is, and it suits her just fine. As she ends with her trademark “Whiskey Drinking Woman” the overriding feeling is that it is impossible not to like Kezia Gill.
Almost exactly a year ago, Catherine and Lizzy Ward Thomas released their fifth album “Music In The Madness”. Clearly eager to do something different, the twins are here, along with guitarist Billy Adamson, to do some reworkings of their material, but a lot more besides.
As they begin, with “Don’t Be A Stranger”, you notice two things. First their incredible harmonies but second, the warmth with which those songs are delivered.
It doesn’t matter really who’s playing what or whether Lizzy is on the piano like on “Guilty Flowers” or Catherine takes the lead vocals in “Someday” it is all categorised by warmth and polish. Indeed, it is something of an irony that Lizzie talks about these songs being delivered in the raw when raw is the very last thing they sound.
To be frank you wouldn’t want them to sound abrasive anyway. Not when they can do a gorgeous version Fleetwood Mac’s “Landslide” oe the title track from one of their albums “Cartwheels” which cements their love of Nashville.
Adamson is clearly an accomplished guitarist, his solos on “Miles Don’t Matter” or “The Middle” are excellent, as is the song “Quarter Life Crisis” for which they are joined by Kezia Gill and the three-part harmonies they deliver are a real highlight.
There are plenty of new songs across the set, with perhaps the most poignant being “I Do” a song that Lizzy sang for her sister’s wedding, and there probably wasn’t a dry eye in the house that day.
Another of the new songs, the gentle “This Is Gonna Hurt” adds an almost folk feel to things, but in the one before, the more raucous, “Push For The Stride” Lizzy is chair dancing as if she’s itching to get up and do her thing.
In keeping with the evening and the relaxed feel, there is no great crescendo instead “Carry You Home” and “Next To You” are just lovely songs, as is the encore of “Deepest You” and that is perhaps the best way to think of Ward Thomas.
2024 is not a vintage year thus far, and as a singer somewhere to you have a choice. You can reflect on the world, or you can reflect your world. Ward Thomas are doing the latter. And doing it expertly.
Catherine thanked the audience before they finished. “We know there’s loads of thinsg you could have been doing tonight” she’d said. True, of course, but not many of them would have been as pleasant and as skilful as this. A little slice of warm sunshine on a cold, damp Black Country night.
