KT Tunstall / Teitur / Sam Lewis

Walking into the SECC on Saturday 19th April you would have been forgiven for believing that the Beanscene had just grew, overnight, into a small arena. The sound of melancholy alt country permeates the air.

The man onstage is singer/songwriter Sam Lewis, accompanied by Chris Morphitis, his producer and nylon strung, sympathetic lead guitarist. Lewis is playing to a half empty hall 4, and although there are some right down the front who really appreciate the melancholic strains of his low pondering voice it doesn't seem to translate all the way to the back. Mr Lewis is also working a double tonight, as he is (for those who are unaware) the main attractions' lead guitarist. Looking around at what crowd has assembled in the hall, one could be forgiven for thinking that a prerequisite of buying a seating ticket must be to have a mortgage, and a Citroen Picasso.

However a look around the standing area reveals a highly different crowd, one as diverse as any I've ever seen at any gig. There are glad rag girls looking like their next stop after the show is Merchant City, there are groups of young boys and young girls (not too dissimilar looking to first time concert goers) who stare wide eyed at the growing masses, bright lights and myriad cables. There are jaded twenty somethings, there are couples, emo's, and people of almost every sense of taste in attendance. Yet, real appreciation for Lewis doesn't seem to reach past the very front of the standing area, that is until he mentions the name 'KT' in conjunction with a song Tunstall and Lewis recorded together for Lewis' album 'Everything You Are' on Rusk Records. If anything, the reaction is like the silent build up of energy in tectonics, latent and unseen.

Subject to a similar lukewarm reaction is Teitur. Hailing from the Faroe Islands and based in Stockholm comes the lone singer/songwriter Teitur Lassen. With influences ranging from Nine Inch Nails to Debussy and John Martyn it's no secret that Lassen is playing to a crowd that will, by and large, be as receptive to his idiosyncratic take on pop as they were when 'Reward' by The Teardrop Explodes was slipped in over the PA at the interval. However, Teitur embraces and draws in certain aspects of the crowd with his unique voice, Jazz laced chord progressions and lyrics that bear more than a little wit. It is also rare to hear a singer who can convey real emotion without drowning the listener in wishy-washy pretentiousness.

The highlight is the honest and downright lovely, 'The Singer', the key line of which being, "I never meant to be a singer, but I'm starting to get used to the idea." It's one of those lines you will never be able to imagine anyone else singing save Lassen himself. It is sheer conviction. Bottle that, and sell it to James Blunt. Even though the crowd warms slightly over the course of his set, Teitur giggles and says, "Don't worry I'm not playing forever... KT's just coming." before playing his last song.

Hall four is well on it's way to being full- and that's a sure sign of one thing.



Arcade Fire's 'Keep the Car Running' plays over the stereo and just as that track ends on it's crescendo the house lights drop like glasses in Ikea, the tectonic plates burst and so does the crowd. KT Tunstall greets the SECC with the universal 'Weigie' greeting, "How ye daein?" and we're into a well paced opener with the first drum beat of the evening. Yet, besides the immediate front rows, the crowd is uniformly still. What is with this crowd? We have the (almost) local-girl-done-good success story and a track worthy of a Teen Team Green Day Bounce- but it's just not there. There's excitement there, but not in the healthy, bordering mass hysteria, rock 'n' pop-bopping way. It isn't that the music doesn't go down well. Applause, at a suitable volume, comes and goes for the first two tracks, though crazy, it is not.

No other phrase except for 'good banter' can possibly describe how Tunstall engages the crowd. She is funny, charming and above all, entertaining. Whether it's warning about the inadequacies of long distance relationships, trying to teach the entire SECC how to perform a mass body-pop, or measuring crowd opinions with an invisible, golden, squirrel-shaped 'club-ometer', Tunstall is a joy to watch. 'Other Side Of the World' predictably goes down easy and paves the way for pockets of dancing to start to form out-with the committed sort that inhabit the front row.



Over the course of time, it becomes apparent that Tunstall possesses a quality in her voice that is truly her own, At times grazing upon Joplin-esque timbres in the loop pedal classic, 'Black Horse and the Cherry Tree' and at others Baez-esque vibrato -in what KT referred to as 'Old Picky Picky Song'. The crowd favorite, 'Suddenly I See' finally broke the timid members of the audience into pop-maddness. Even the seated spectators started to dance in their seats!

In the encore we are treated to an excellent, impromptu 'Loop Pedal KT' solo cover of the Jackson Five's, 'I Want You Back'. Whatever your opinion on the state of pop music today, there are some talents you cannot deny. With a clear knack for songwriting, a cool musical imagination and as shown with this evenings newer tracks from 'Drastic Fantastic' a rockier, band lead dimension, KT Tunstall has the potential to stick around for a very long time.



Set List
Little favours
Miniature disasters
Otherside of the world
Hold on
Someday soon
Funny man
Black horse
Solo tune
Ashes
Hopeless
Under the weather
Beauty of uncertainty
Another place
If only
Saving my face
Suddenly I see

Universe and you
Stopping the love
I want you back
I don't want you now

FUTURE GIGS