It’s so difficult to write an original review of Courtney Marie Andrews. I have seen her six or seven times in the last six years from a packed crowd in a tiny pub in Guildford, circa fifty people, to tonight’s, surprisingly not sold out, show at Koko.
She consistently delivers a near faultless set every time whether it’s solo acoustic or like tonight with a band. Both have their merits but when the band are as good as they are then it does give those songs a little something else.
It’s a slow start tonight that’s maybe due to the nature of the material and it took a couple of songs for the sound to settle but the show really kicked off for me when they delivered a stunning version of one of my favourites ‘Burlap String’. That voice is so pure and has such range that Courtney Marie has few peers in what she does. It’s not for me to compare, according to one singer that will remain nameless, but the comparisons with Courtney Marie and a well know west coast folk singer from the seventies are obvious.
As mentioned above the band provide a superb low key support to add depth to the songs but leaving more than enough room for the voice to soar when required but also give it the sparseness for those quieter pin drop moments.
There were some clear highlights for me in addition to that mentioned previously with a great version of ‘Irene’, a new song to me ‘Near You’ and of course the obvious set closer ‘Table for One’.
Chalk this one up in the list of great CMA performances, always a must see and if ever there was a better example to the question ‘why isn’t this artist bigger than this’ I don’t know.
Keep on country, folkin rock n rollin’ y’all
PS sorry for the crap photos, forgot my camera.