Music > Live Reviews
Sharon Van Etten
The Adrian Flux Waterfront
02/07/19
On a Saturday lunchtime at Latitude in 2012, in the big top then known as The Word Arena, my musical world suddenly expanded, creating space for someone who would become my new favourite singer songwriter. She was in Europe promoting Tramp, her third album release and, whilst the entire set had me spellbound, there was one song, Serpents, that wormed its way into my head and remained there for the rest of that weekend. Her name was Sharon Van Etten. Seven years later and I am in Norwich on a Monday night, listening to that very same song as it is performed it during the encore to her show at The Waterfront, those venomous lyrics and driving beat eliciting exactly the same response again, and reminding me just what a fine album Tramp still is.
But time marches on, and tonight's show is all about the new album, the John Congleton produced Remind Me Tomorrow, released earlier this year to widespread acclaim. During the course of the evening we get a chance to hear each and every one of the album's ten tracks, starting with the synth-heavy darkness and moodiness of Jupiter 4 and finishing with the achingly beautiful I Told You Everything.
We are three tracks in before she welcomes us, and eventually straps on a guitar for One Day (from 2010's Epic) – she no longer appears apprehensive about stepping out and performing the vocals whilst allowing the four-piece band to provide the accompaniment. And the independent mood and spirit of the new material seem to reflect and encourage this. Maybe the recent acting roles in The OA for Netflix, and in the 2017 series of Twin Peaks, have encouraged and created this new, more dramatic style?
Four songs in and someone calls out, 'How was Glastonbury, Sharon?' BBC's iPlayer coverage of the Worthy Farm shenanigans is now so extensive that I am still wading my way through the recordings three days later, though I suspect that many of tonight's audience will have had a chance to watch Van Etten's set before coming out tonight. Fewer may have caught her smouldering cover of the Irving Berlin classic Let's Face The Music and Dance performed on the West Holts Stage alongside Jeff Goldblum (yes, him off The Fly and Jurassic Park) and the Mildred Snitzer Orchestra, a version of which, we learn, will be appearing on Goldblum's upcoming album release.
The only cover tonight, though, is a chilling version of Sinéad O'Connor's 1990 song Black Boys On Mopeds, originally written following a police pursuit that ended in the death of teenage moped rider Nicholas Bramble and which, disturbingly, still sounds as relevant now as it did almost thirty years ago.
Older tracks also shoe-horned into tonight's set included All I Can (from Tramp), Every Time The Sun Comes Up (from Are We There), and the final encore, Love More (from Epic), which is delivered by way of a departing plea for us to share in the quest to vanquish pain, angst and negativity, and to replace it with love, equality and humanity, and for us all to be kind to each other. And who can argue with the sentiments of that?
Support at The Waterfront tonight came from Eşya, the solo project of Savages' bass player Ayşe Hassan, and featuring a stunning combination of drum machine, synth patterns and moody bass providing a platform for Hassan's raw and galvanic vocals. Featuring tracks such as Everything and Nothing, from the new EP, 'Absurdity of ATCG', and Lost and Obsolete from last year's 'Absurdity of Being', this was a real treat for those arriving at the venue ahead of the main act.