This song saved my life

From Marina to Nerina!

For some artists, everything just comes together on one album - and for me, Nerina Pallot's second album Fires, which came out in '05 is just about perfect. I bought it without knowing anything about her and it turned out to be a lovely collection of songs performed well with decent lyrics and tunes. I've dipped into a few of her other albums over the years, but none of them have stuck with me in the same way that Fires has (and it still gets a listen on a fairly regular basis).

But I'd never seen her live, so when I saw she was appearing at the Royal Albert Hall to celebrate the 25th anniversary of her debut album, I thought I'd pop along to see how she's bearing up after all this time - what's the worst that could happen?!?

Well - I guess it could have been scheduled on the same date as railway engineering works and Arsenal's victory parade, which mean that my train stopped at St Pancras and I was forced to emerge into an absolute sea of red and white with all varieties of public transport completely overwhelmed. I'm sure various options were available to me, but I suspected that working them out would have taken me as long as to just walk the three miles (and I obviously needed the exercise having only run 24km earlier that day) - so off I trekked.

I got there in plenty of time though and settled into a reasonably comfortable seat with plenty of time to contrast it with the other iconic Victorian venue I was in last week. The RAH may be as equally awkward to get to as the Ally Pally (even without an Arsenal parade to contend with) but I think it's fair to say that the RAH has slightly plusher surroundings - it just feels like a special place (as opposed to a large barn). However, all the fancy accoutrements like chairs obviously bring their own difficulties because, just in my immediate area, there were five people that somehow managed to sit in the wrong place - the usher was amusingly "what is wrong with these people?!!?" (whilst obviously still being oh-so-polite to them all). It was also interesting to compare the audiences between the two gigs because whilst I stood out as an old dude compared to the colourful carnage of Marina's crowd, I was relatively youthful amongst Nerina's people - I don't think I noticed anyone younger than mid-thirties, with plenty of ties and jackets in evidence of a "proper night out".

They may have looked like a polite crowd, but I can tell you things all kicked off once the scheduled start time of 7:15 came and went. Every time a new track started over the PA system, there were multiple tuts, glances at watches and quiet mutterings along the lines of "isn't she supposed to be on by now?" - these people were not standing for it, I can tell you. Things got so bad that the venue had to put out an announcement to apologise for the short delay - thankfully this just about prevented a full-on riot and everyone managed to compose themselves until she arrived on stage at the frankly outrageous time of 7:35.

Part of the reason for the late arrival was apparent in her first section of chat after a couple of songs, which she opened with "I'm just so scared, I'm just so scared" - it's fair to say she was finding it all a bit of a big deal. We had to wait until the thanks section at the end for another part of the reason - she'd only gone and left her posh frock (which she wore for the first half of the show) at home, so someone had to be hastily sent off to go and pick it up. Oops. 

She may have been super nervous, but none of it came through during the songs - well, except for the part where she fessed up to forgetting the words and the time she confidently started a track with "And this is how it goes", only to stop five seconds later and check with her band that she was actually playing the right song. Apart from those moments, it was a strong confident performance throughout the night giving us 24 songs across nearly three hours (including an interval) with her switching between piano and guitar throughout the evening. 

She was also very ably assisted by a LOT of people on stage - 18 musicians in all, made up of a five piece band, an ten piece string section, a couple of backing singers (a father-daughter combination) and a harpist (who only played on the first and last songs). And many of them had been playing with her for many years, with a couple of them having been around since the very beginning approximately thirty years ago - and the sounds were as impressive as you'd expect from a group that have worked together for so long.

The songs from Fires were the ones I knew best, with "Idaho", "Geek Love", "Mr King" and an absolutely gorgeous version of "Sophia" (very similar to this one from earlier in the tour) standing out for me. However, I also liked the songs I didn't know, with "Blessed", "There Is A River" and "This Heart Is A Lonely Hunter" all holding my attention. The piano based songs came across particularly well, with an impressive Elton John kinda vibe with strong character or narrative driven lyrics over some pretty damn impressive playing.

Unusually for someone with a sizeable back catalogue (she played tracks off eight of her albums throughout the evening) we were also treated to a decent selection of cover versions. The first half of the show was closed by Joy Division's "Love Will Tear Us Apart" (slowly down nicely on the piano) and Kylie Minogue's "Aphrodite" (which is arguably not a cover because Nerina wrote it). The second half was then opened by Supertramp's "Long Way Home" (which was rousingly done) and we also got one further cover as a "Royal Albert Hall tax" which she explained meant she had to play something classically British and in keeping with the surroundings - Elgar and Vaughan-Williams were rejected as "not something you put on to cheer yourself up after a trip round the M25" and we were instead treated to Paul McCartney's "Blackbird" (which I think was a better choice).

It's fair to say the lass does like to have a chat with her audience - she's got a nice level of relatable whimsy to her banter, even if the stories don't always go anywhere in a hurry or anywhere that actually relates to what's about to come next. One particularly long tale related to Joss Stone stealing her rider on a previous visit to RAH and was concluded with "errr - and this next song has absolutely nothing to do with Joss Stone". Her audience were obviously used to it though and absolutely adore her - the level of devotion (or at least the willingness to show it) doesn't quite match Marina's fans, but there was some pretty hearty applause throughout the evening and, during the final song, some people went wild and actually stood up!

We all have our own ways of showing our appreciation though and there really was a lot here to appreciate. She's a fantastically skilled yet entirely relatable performer and I thoroughly enjoyed the evening which has encouraged me to revisit some of her other albums which I've obviously not spent enough time with in the past.