LUCY ROSE | LIVE REVIEW
The Globe, Cardiff, Wed 21 Oct
Following delays in the opening of the Tramshed, an ambitious sounding new venue in Grangetown, Lucy Rose instead packs out a steaming hot Globe on Albany Road, the audience thronging to get out of the rain and closer to their hero, here tonight as part of a huge tour in support of second album Work It Out. She opens tonight’s show with Like An Arrow, from that album, to hysterical applause – a situation which continues pretty much throughout.
The crowd, most of whom look wouldn’t look out of place at a Hollyoaks casting call, rarely let up in their energy. To say Rose is a popular figure in Cardiff tonight is to understate things considerably, though some still take it rather too far: a collective wince runs through the room at one point as grown man gushingly exclaims “Lucy, you’re the sweetest!” in a break between songs. To her credit, Rose gamely thanks her cringe-inducing fan and cracks on with another number.
She is a sincere and engaging character, clearly delighted to be here, who reflects the crowd’s energy, with a lively performance and an unrelenting grin. She’s also a talented musician, backed by a similarly able four-piece band and she’s got some great tunes too; the likes of Lines and Middle Of The Bed are genuinely pretty wonderful pop songs and, inevitably, go down a storm tonight. For all that, it’s hard to watch a full set and come away thinking that there’s anything particularly interesting about Lucy Rose. She has none of the jazz-club cool of a contemporary like Nadine Shah, for example, nor the folky mysticism of Laura Marling. She writes good, occasionally excellent, songs that are of radio friendly length, with hooks in the right places and uncontroversial lyrics about love and relationships that her young fanbase can probably relate to.
Whether that will be enough to maintain those people’s interest in five or 10 years’ time is questionable. Still, for tonight she does more than enough to put beaming smiles on the faces of her audience, who flock back out into a gloomy night abuzz and upbeat.
words and photos HUGH RUSSELL