This was the third time I had been to see Thea Gilmore at The Stables, the previous times being in 2004 and 2007. A packed house had a very enjoyable evening. On first was husband and producer Nigel Stonier. I found most of his songs fairly ordinary, but his jazz influenced Messin' With Fire, which was used on the soundtrack of the movie Confetti was the best of the set.
Before the concert, I had read that Thea would be performing with Nigel on guitar and piano, and with a violin and cello. So basically an acoustic set. So I was pretty worried that the concert would lack something without her usual backing band. But in the end the instruments complimented her mostly hauntingly beautiful songs so well. This was mostly due to the expertise of the musicians. Nigel, of course, is a terrific accompanist, but the revelation of the evening were Susannah Simmons on violin and Liz Hanks on cello. These two young women were outstanding, as were the arrangements. Thea's voice was as excellent as usual despite complaining of a cold coming on.
Her choice of her own songs was great, and the cover of The Cure's Lovesong was superb. Move over Adele. For a taste of her performance, her song I Will Not Disappoint You (Live) at Queen Elizabeth Hall, London is on YouTube. An outstanding concert finished with (not my favourite oldie This Girl Is Taking Bets) but the equally rousing London. One final touch was the entrance of seven year old son Egan Stonier on violin to help out on a couple of numbers. I can remember at the last concert at The Stables, he was just a baby. Yes Thea, he should have been in bed. What a family.
The full set list: This Is How You Find The Way - Old Soul - Cold Coming - How The Love Gets In - This Road - Start As We Mean To Go On - Lovesong - December In New York - The Man Who Sold The World - I Will Not Disappoint You - Beautiful Hopeful - Pain In My Heart - Love Came Looking For Me - You're The Radio - London. Encore: Sol Invictus (a cappella performance by Thea) - Thea Gilmore's Midwinter Toast - That'll Be Christmas.
1 comment:
Thank you for this post - I was there too and had an amazing night but couldn't remember all of the tracks that were played. (I only really started listening to most of Thea's songs recently with Regardless but have somehow known 'Taking Bets' for a very long time! Yes, it would have been great to hear that.)
I thought the Lovesong cover was superb - I'm a Cure fan of old and always thought that Tori Amos's version was the best - nope ;)
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