Rock and Pop: Paloma Faith @ The Barbican
Published: 16 December, 2010
by RICHARD OSLEY
ME was wrong about Paloma Faith: I used to think she was an irrelevant Twitter bore, dreaming up elaborate ways to be different on the telly and being quirky in an obvious way with hats and heels. I thought she was a kind of all-too-deliberate hash of Amy Winehouse, Bjork and a kid from Islington who plays her iPhone out loud on the bus.
Yet on Friday night, I fell in love with her. Her show Down The End of A Lonely Street, a storybook read aloud in between a selection of more than 20 swing soul classics, looked like it had been hastily put together. But it didn’t matter that Paloma had to keep checking a cribsheet because the sound she conjured with the 40-strong Guy Barker Orchestra made was outstanding. Truly outstanding.
It will be hard now to see her without a searing collection of horns, violins and organs when she tours on her own.
There was some infectious goofing about on the stage and she was clearly most relaxed when singing her own material. Two goes at Upside Down had the audience stomping their feet but the best moment was New York sung from the upper floor balcony. You wanted to stop time there and then and hear her sing the refrain again and again. The fact it matched the jazz classics perforating the rest of the show proved she’s not just the one with the funny hat. She’s here to stay and I’m a convert.