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Review: 'YAMAGATA, RACHEL & MORELL, JAKE'
'London, the Islington, 17th November 2016'   


-  Genre: 'Pop'

Our Rating:
I was sent to review this gig and decided to go along, despite not having heard anything by either Rachel Yamagata or the support act Jake Morell in advance. I went on the strength of what I read in the press release. Well, that and that I always like to be surprised by bands live.

Having arrived with a bit of time to spare, I soon realised I was standing next to the couple most likely to talk through the entire show who were busy taking endless selfies etc. So having moved to the other side of the Islington, I was glad to also find that the sound from the speakers was also far better.

Jake Morell opened playing solo rather than with his band, a fact he apologised for several times. To me he sounds like a young and sober Jackie Leven if you can ever imagine Jackie being sober that is. Cross this with someone trying to be the new Damien Dempsey and you're close.

His songs are okay and he has a nice, plangent sound to his guitar playing when he isn't hitting some rather bum notes, though he did apologize for that fact. The best song was probably Hey Girl, which went down pretty well even if not everyone managed to shut up for it.

Rachel Yamagata had loads of instruments on stage so it was a bit of a surprise that she was performing for the first time on this tour as a duo having left the rest of the band in China on the previous leg of the tour. OK. Anyway, she was joined onstage by Michael Chaves who helped mix Leonard Cohen's final studio album and between them they played a large array of instruments.

She opened playing an acoustic guitar with Michael on drums and keyboards. I think it was a song about a girl whose life was falling apart, but damn, what a voice she has - rich and sonorous with loads of emotion to convey the feelings in the song's lyrics. These may have been a bit bleak but musically they were anything but and overall it all sounded pretty uplifting.

They proceeded to the title track of her latest album Tightrope Walker. This opened with a sample of The tightrope walker Phillipe Petit rather than the Bip Hop musical legend Philippe Petit and led into a song about the perils of life and how you really need to live it and go for it even if you are unsure as to why you are doing something. Good advice, all things considered.

She then switched to the hired Nord piano that Michael kept telling her not to leave drinks on. She sing about what she digs (sorry for not knowing the song titles and my notes are a bit hard to decipher) and it turned out she was right when she claimed to be better at piano than guitar, but it's close.

By this point in the set it was becoming clear Rachel has a lot of songs about love gone wrong or relationships that don't last as long as she'd like. This included the duet she wrote and sang with Ray Lamontagne called (well, of course) Duet. It's about them being on the road together and falling into each other's arms. It was sung solo here tonight but's a pretty cool song and I'm sure their voices are well matched.

I really liked the almost pleading nature of Be Be Your Lover about the dark side of passion that I'm sure had plenty of people going a bit weak. It was close on the perfect way conclude the set.

She got a huge reaction and although they didn't leave the stage they did do an encore. This opened with what I think would have been her big hit, I Wish you Love. It certainly had a lot of people singing along to it before she finished things off by singing Elephant a capella and then after thanking us several more times she left to more applause.

Rachel said she will be back on tour next year and on this form she is well worth seeing live solo or as a duo or with a fuller band. She seems to have all bases covered.
  author: simonovitch

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