LUCY ROSE - Live Review / Gallery with support from Flytes

LUCY ROSE – WEDGEWOOD ROOMS, PORTSMOUTH, 15th November 2015, Review by KEITH (MR TEETHS):

The main support act this evening was due to be Mercury Music Prize nomination C Duncan, who unfortunately cancelled on the afternoon of the show due to losing his voice, this in turn meant the last minute addition of Lucy Rose’s keyboard player (under the moniker Swamp Mother) with Flyte being moved up a slot on the bill.

Much though industry awards can be considered controversial given they’re not chosen “by the people“ it was still a shame C Duncan had to pull out as the Mercury Music Prize has been largely successful in launching the careers of Dizzee Rascal, Elbow and Franz Ferdinand to name but a few.

It also meant that as a result of her early stage time I missed Swamp Mother and instead witnessed Flyte, who to be fair seemed to have a large following of their own and with tonight being a sell-out also had plenty of new fans to potentially win over with their middle of the road indie.

Their frontman interacted with the crowd, reminiscing on having played a battle of the bands at the Wedgewood rooms and although in that environment I may have enjoyed them a little more when it came to it ultimately Flyte were all a bit too bland for my liking.

When Lucy Rose took to the stage, I have to admit I still knew little about her – except for the fact that whilst she may well be tiny in stature, she had managed to sell out the Wedgewood Rooms, something that she too found very exciting and genuinely surprised at the turn out for the night.

Her popularity was soon understandable, for Lucy Rose is more than just another female singer songwriter, if she was to appear with just an acoustic guitar (which for one song in the encore she did) I feel her talents may be a little lost as having the full band really brought her songs to life.

Lucy Rose’s first album “Like I used to” was recorded in her parents’ house and soon reached top twenty in the UK album charts, it’s no wonder then that from her humble beginnings to being propelled into the mainstream Lucy appeared somewhat nervous about the reaction her new album “Work it Out” would receive, between songs she often reiterated how there were no expectations upon her first release and is now aware of the expectations for the second.

When it came to it though putting down her guitar and stepping behind keyboards for the more stripped back “Nebraska” showed there was definitely nothing to worry about, ok there was a little of the Saturday night curse with people talking but as soon as things picked up with more lively numbers such as “Koln” there was plenty of crowd interaction – from cheesy handclaps to Lucy Rose noticing a dance routine near the front of the crowd, everyone appeared in good spirits and as the encore came to a close after a mammoth 18 track set-list it was no wonder the Wedgewood Rooms was the place to be on such a wet and windy evening.