Gin and slimline

Some people are just robust. Strong and feisty. Others are rather less so. When it comes to performing divas of the stage, this is particularly true. There is almost a fragility, like the whole thing is on a tightrope between triumph and disaster. Seen in the flesh, this against-the-odds precarious triumph of personal appearance and ability to perform is both breathtaking and totally nervewracking.

This was my sensation on Friday night watching Amy Winehouse at Somerset House. The audience were on tenterhooks (would she show up? how pissed would she be?), and even someone involved with her record company seemed a little nervous. There had been so many cancellations and disasters. Even, at the Eden Project earlier in the week she had supposedly spat at the audience. But, there was none of that at the performance I witnessed. In fact, she seemed remarkably sober, and the voice was perfection.

Dressed in a polka-dot micro-skirt, like Minnie Mouse on heroin, she stalked across the stage for the first few numbers in precariously high heels. As if she wasn't necessarily the most stable on her pins in the first place, this did seem to tempt fate. It made the point that her upright balance wasn't just a piece of luck but nothing short of a fluke.

She had this habit of introducing a song, slipping off-stage for a couple of words with her husband, who leaned, be-hatted against the railing at the side, then suddenly realising she was needed to start singing. She would then run, at full tilt in four inch heels and screech to a dramatic halt at the microphone, like road runner wearing nicotine patches, and start singing. Just like that. This is what I mean by describing the concert as an exercise in brinkmanship.

But it is important to say just how fabulous it was. She seemed to genuinely love every second, and (as I mentioned yesterday) unlike many singers, the voice sounded exactly, almost eerily precisely, how one hears it on record. That sound, all tar-soaked gravel, makes her among the most perfect he-did-me-wrong!-song singers ever. When she came to Love is a losing game it was gut-wrenching. That was sensational.

The pictures, I should explain, were taken with my phone. I foolishly forgot the digital, but they're not bad. Considering. This last one is pretty shit, but I guess you can see Amy.

One thing that bothered me and those around me was the number of people who were talking during the entire show. Chatty like they had a lot to say. What could be so important? There was someone singing! I was vaguely irked. At one point I even asked the woman in front of me to shut the fuck up* but incredibly irritatingly she looked at me like I had asked the most absurd thing in the world and pretty much ignored me. This did not please me. Anyway, I got to thinking why so many people were talking. At then it dawned on me. There was Amy, singing up there surrounded by fancy standard lamps covered in cute dingly dangly shades singing heartfelt soul. As the performance drew to a close with a blistering Me & Mr Jones, the wind began to swirl the dry ice off the stage and over the audience creating a faux pall of smoke. Even in this era of smoking bans, Amy transformed the entire courtyard of Somerset House into a cabaret lounge. All we needed was a waitress with a bottle of Tanqueray...

* Babs tomorrow

Comments

[Tony]

"like road runner wearing nicotine patches"

Haha - the most *perfectly* spot-on description ever!

[xolondon]

Thank God she pulled through. My take is that a lot of what you read about her may be press bull. It's true of Lily Allen too. Amy's character has been decided on by the wags and they create stories around that character.

[TRICKY]

T: thanks again, it was a great evening. And she is like a cartoon character. I really think so.

XO: I think a lot of it is hyped so she has this rep as a crazy diva which makes her more icon-esque. I don't have a problem with this as long as she performs. And she does.