Jessie Ware live review
As a Brixtonite born and bred now performing minutes from where she grew up, Jessie Ware’s London gig carries with it the atmosphere of a homecoming parade, where the relationship of audience to performer is less adoring fan and more proud friend. Accordingly, tonight’s is a show dotted with digs at North Londoners, a shout-out to Ware’s family enjoying the show from the luxury of a box, and features a singer far more smiley than her smoothly soulful heartbreak songs should really allow.
Indeed, once this last incongruity is overcome (the opening three numbers are stiflingly flat against the crowd’s enthusiasm, paired as they are with lashings of dry ice and lighting so moody that Ware is barely visible), the performance is a delight. Ware looks and sounds every bit the honey-voiced diva during each song (and just as down to earth in between) and, refreshingly, acknowledges her tiny back catalogue by playing a short, engaging set of her best songs instead of diluting them with b-sides and covers. Indeed, after only 40 minutes Ware bids her public a tangibly fond farewell with Wildest Moments, but that brevity – and accompanying high quality – is a virtue that only augments a triumphant return.
