KATE TEMPEST | LIVE REVIEW
Tramshed, Cardiff, Wed 13 Nov
Words have become weapons, the planet’s most powerful people are lying like never before resulting in chaos and confusion. Kate Tempest’s writing shines a necessary light of truth and humanity through the smog of bullshit that has engulfed us.
Tonight, the setting of the stage is befitting of the stark sound of the new album – The Book Of Traps And Lessons, produced by Rick Rubin. In total darkness except for a glowing red moon that frames her, Tempest is joined only by Clare Uchima, live mixing and on keys. Before she begins, she graciously thanks the crowd for making it out on such a grim night and for dealing with whatever it was that we’d had to deal with to get there.
Explaining that she is going to play tracks from 2016’s Let Them Eat Chaos and then the new album in full, Tempest politely asks the crowd to put their phones away: given the intimate nature of the performance and the gut-spilling content of her lyrics, having the glow of a mobile phone in her face makes it impossible to connect. The crowd are thus invited to get their photographing out of the way there and then. “If it doesn’t feature on your story it didn’t happen, right, and how else will you remember you were here…” she jokes, more patiently than I could.
Opening with the shattering Europe Is Lost, the set continues with a passion that is unrelenting. The chunky beats and soaring synths of Clare Uchima underscore her ferocious, relentless delivery. On Three Sided Coin she spits: “Our leaders aren’t even pretending not to be demons.”
There is tenderness and optimism as well, most notably on new track Hold Your Own where she reminds us that the warmth we share with each other is far more nurturing than capitalist fantasies.
She combines the political with the personal, and in the final track People’s Faces takes us from despair to hope, reminding us to turn to each other in the face of adversity. She and Uchima bow to rapturous applause and leave the stage.
Tempest returns, teasing an encore but telling us that she didn’t want the last thing we felt to be disappointment: “I’ve said all I came here to say.” A voice of truth, compassion and hope.
words GRACE TODD