JUDGING by her pitch perfect scouse accent KT Tunstall has some affection for Liverpool - and last Saturday Liverpool returned the compliment.
More muscular than its 2004 predecessor, Eye to the Telescope, new album Drastic Fantastic, highlights an edgier voice - and an equally feisty line in mid-set banter.
Swinging from run-ins with Liverpool teens who not only give you directions to Top Shop but what you should buy there, to a joke so dirty it cannot be repeated in a family newspaper, you’re on her side before she even sings.
When she does, the confidence is justified, and the diverse crowd at Liverpool University were more than impressed.
Early in the set, second song off the new album “If Only� shows off a remarkable set of pipes to full effect, the chorus sweeping up with a dusky falsetto.
It’s a voice with a rough edge that’s somehow at home with her tight band, but also engaging in the acoustic section.
She may have been considered to be at the vanguard of a folky revival but for me her voice seems to engage more with the might of her talented group behind her - and a mention should go to her drummer, the watchable Luke Bullen, flailing his arms and working the toms with gusto.
Solo acoustic tracks are hard to put across in such a big space but she holds the attention, even if at the back of the venue some of the people who have, after all, paid to hear her could do her the courtesy of shutting up for five minutes.
Students eh?
Other set highlights included a soaring “Other Side of the World� and the trademark echo box shenanigans of “Black Horse and the Cherry Tree�, not to mention a show-stopping cover of the Bangles’ Walk Like an Egyptian in the encore.
The show swung between acoustic introspection and full on rock, from musical accomplishment to a man banging a dustbin lid as well as a very attractive woman in a fetching silver top describing just how much she’s sweating on stage.
A night of contrasts then, from the Radio 2 darling who’s actually very cool.
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