Music > Live Reviews

Lissie

The Adrian Flux Waterfront

09/12/16

Tonight's show at Norwich's Waterfront is a rather lovely triple bill of singer songwriters, headed by a certain Illinois-born Elisabeth Maurus, better known to many as Lissie. She has maintained a loyal following since first appearing here back in October 2010. Six years on, there is once again a reassuringly long queue snaking back towards King Street when I arrive. Personally, I am equally looking forward to seeing Teddy Thompson and, of course, Norwich's own Jess Morgan.

It is Jess Morgan that gets the evening started, still with the audience arriving and sorting themselves out with drinks. The stage is unusually empty, and seems vast without its usual crowded jumble of instruments, monitors and amps. Jess is performing a solo set tonight, and uses the opportunity to introduce tracks from the Edison Gloriette album, as well as Down In Flames from the EP Bournemouth. I appreciate that it was still early in the evening, and that a lot of Lissie fans had travelled from around the country to be here tonight, but it was a shame that so many of them chose to talk through the whole of Jess' set, thereby missing out on gems like The Longest Arm,  A Hundred Years Old and the beautiful In Brooklyn.

Alternative country singer Teddy Thompson has released six albums since his eponymous debut in 2000, including the 2008 top ten hit A Piece of What You Need. It is the first time I have had a chance to see him live, and even though the chatterers at the back have still not settled down, he impresses with a voice that is not unlike the late Phil Everly, and the songs are both sensitive and beautifully constructed. For those that do not know, Teddy Thompson is the son of 60's folk-rockers Richard and Linda Thompson, and he recounts the time that he spent as a child in a hippy commune somewhere in Norfolk after his parents converted to Islam. He ends his set with Leonard Cohen's Ballad of The Absent Mare, deftly playing guitar and scrolling down the lyrics on his mobile phone simultaneously.

Lissie kicks off her set with Hero, a track from the new album My Wild West, followed by four songs from the sophomore Back To Forever. The band is gone, replaced by Nick Tesoriero on semi-acoustic guitar. Its absence is more than made up for by the strength of Lissie's distinctive vocals. My god she can belt out a song. If they ever need someone to sing The Star Spangled Banner at the Superbowl Final, she could probably manage it without the microphone.

This is certainly an older, and possibly wiser, Lissie than we saw here back in 2010, and this seems reflected in the newer material, although it is the tracks from Catching A Tiger that still strike the chord with tonight's audience, and have them singing along to all the words. She has always been praised for her interpretive covers, and tonight is no exception. She delights with versions of Joni Mitchell's River and Bonnie Raitt's I Can't Make You Love Me. The encore consists of Ojai, a bittersweet tribute to her time spent living in California, finishing with a climactic In Sleep, featuring some stunning guitar work from Tesoriero.

Lissie leaves us with the hope that she will be back next year, a thought that would appear to be shared by the vast majority of tonight's audience. How easy it will be for her to break into new markets without the support of a big label remains to be seen, but as tonight shows, her popularity in Norwich is undiminished.