The Emilia Quinn Bare Faced
tour has been around the country, and on Sunday night it reached its final stop
in The Hare and Hounds, Birmingham. The
venue has a special place in music history, and in Emilia’s own journey. A year ago she played here with her full band
on her very first headline tour, and the show was recorded so that a series of
live singles could be released. This
time around there was no band, just Emilia, her guitarist John W Doyle, a
coffee table and some mugs of tea.
The relaxed set up suited
the intimate, seated audience and perhaps was a welcome rest at the end of a
tiring tour. In another break from the
“normal” concert style, the warm up act was John – just him, his guitar and his
stories.
If you’ve seen Emilia live
over the last couple of years you’ll easily recognise John W Doyle, not just
for his amazing beard, but also for his skilled guitar playing. This tour allowed him to take centre stage,
if only for a while, and show off those quite incredible guitar skills and his
songwriting. Normally with either
Emilia’s band or a blues band, he displayed a fabulous intimacy with the
listening audience. Although he doesn’t
believe in talking too much about the songs “because if you've done a good job,
the song should tell the story” John is fun to listen to, with a mix of stories
and one liners – and great song writing.
Inspired by his time on this tour he performed a song that he had
finished that morning with the great title and repeated line Whiskey Into Wine, a song that really suits his soft yet gruff voice.
Before finishing his solo
set, John apologised for singing depressing songs but said “A brighter future
is coming” Throughout the whole evening,
from Emilia coming out to introduce John on stage, to the duet main show the
genuine affection and mutual respect was very obvious. These two have a genuine chemistry and have
clearly enjoyed this quite special tour – the catchphrase being “I’ve had a
lovely time”
There was a short break
before Emilia came to the stage along with John – slightly delayed by eating
cake in the green room! Somehow even
hearing about the cake added to the feel of the evening as we all shared in the
story, if not in the actual cake!
Emilia is the ultimate rock chick. An Outlaw, a firecracker, the baddest
bitch in the land and has rocked out festival stages with her boundless
energy, but on this tour she has gone “bare faced” and stripped back – and it
suits her just as well as those big stage performances. We were promised old songs, new songs and
reimagined songs – and boy did she deliver!
Notable was the smoky, jazzy version of her anthemic Outlaw, so
reimagined that it took a moment to even recognise it. Vocally and stylistically, it was Emilia
channelling her inner Amy Winehouse. If
there was ever any doubt about Emilia’s sheer musical range, this one song
crushed that!
We had a new song inspired
by a chat gpt prompt, we witnessed Emilia play cello on a number of songs
(incredibly well!) including on a reimagined Pretty Pink Pills, we had a “full
circle” moment when we heard Let It Burn which was recorded at this
venue and only ever released as a live track.
Emilia paid tribute to the
important people in her life – during Father's Daughter she sang to her Father on Facetime, she dedicated the next song to her ever-worrying
mother and of course she praised her wife, tour manager and voice of reason
Tammy – “Everybody needs a Tammy”
All too soon this show, and
the tour, had to come to a close (with a cover of Chris Stapleton’s Fire Away
and an encore of Without You) but Emilia can’t sit still for long –
she’s already announced her next live shows!
An album being recorded, a
single release planned for February in London and Manchester all on the heels
of a great tour with a change of style.
It seems there is no
stopping Emilia.
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