First up a note on the venue. First time visit to Lafayette for Anne and myself, a new venue just up the road from Kings Cross station. It’s the sister site of Omeara but instead of going for the run down, aged look, Lafayette is a modern, wide but shallow room so you are never very far from the stage. However, what it does have in common with its sister site is either the complete lack of air conditioning or more likely a reluctance to actually turn it on. Too many gigs have been affected at Omeara by the heat and on a chilly April night it’s already warm at the start of the gig here and very hot by the end, so much so that a guy in front of us fainted at the start of the encore. Please sort it out guys.
Onto the music. I’ve been a long-time fan of Lissie going back to the breakthrough ‘Catching a Tiger’ which recently celebrated its tenth anniversary. To celebrate and commemorate the set draws heavily from this album with some choice cuts taken across her early albums.
Tonight she is joined by original band member Eric Sullivan on guitar who literally blew the roof off of this venue. What a player. He’s got all the licks without being too showy and some of those solos were great. Also in the band were support act Later Youth who we caught the end of and their lead Jo Dudderidge provided immaculate hamronies and keys to flesh out the overall sound. Definitively a band to check out. So on a night when I was expecting a guitar based pop gig what we got was a full on rock show.
Lissie herself no slouch on guitar possesses that ‘Steve Nicksesque’ voice and I was about to mention this to Anne when she then broke into the Mac’s ‘Dreams’. Close your eyes and it could have been Stevie right there.
It’s difficult to find any fault tonight not that I was looking for any and there is nothing more pleasing than watching both the band and crowd smiling throughout and that common joy is one of the reasons I love live music. Impossible to pick a highlight from a consistently great show from a super talented bunch of musicians. Can’t wait for her return to these shores
Keep on rock and rollin y’all