It’s been a good four years since I visited the Union Chapel and it’s easy to forget what an impressive atmospheric venue it is especially for acoustic led music. The lighting tonight is particularly spectacular with the reds and oranges picking out the variety of niches within the architecture.
Nursing a cold tonight Courtney leads us through tracks mainly from her last two excellent albums ‘Honest Life and ‘May your Kindness Remain’ but there’s a couple of new ones plus a great cover of Neil Young’s ‘One of these days’. Clearly suffering, sipping hot lemon and coughing intermittently, it is barely noticeable vocally and apart from a couple of occasions she hits all of the notes with that beautiful voice.
Courtney has clearly grown as an artist from the shy introvert in Guildford to one that is confident on stage sharing stories with her self-deprecating humour. But it’s all about that voice. A perfect blend of Emmylou Harris and Maria McKee and certainly for the latter demonstrated on set closer ‘May Your Kindness Remain’ which could have easily been lifted from McKee’s stunning self-titled solo debut from thirty years ago. The set flies by and just to really test her voice she decides to do the final song unplugged without amplification down from the stage amongst the pews. Brave and beautiful.
It’s another faultless show this year but for my money the full band shows from earlier in the year edges as it was pure perfection from start to finish.
Keep on country rockin y’all