Alex Kate
January can be a lean time for gigs, a month when I find sometimes find myself scratching around for music events that pique my interest. However, I became intrigued by an online posting where local singer songwriter Alex Kate was described as being 'reminiscent to Kate Bush and Karen Carpenter'. Ignoring this poor use of the English grammar, I decided to investigate further. It was then, only as I was climbing the steps to the Waterfront Studio last Thursday, that I remembered that the very same Kate Alex had hired Norwich Arts Centre last February, and had performed a very similar showcase event, attended mostly by a large circle of family and friends.
Alex Kate (real name Alexandra Hutton) is clearly a master of self-promotion, releasing a series of slick and professional looking YouTube videos to accompany her on-line single and EP releases. Several of these had been shot in South Africa, and her well-scrubbed sense of fashion and style has surely to be acknowledged.
Listed as opening supports for the seated event at the Waterfront Studio were vocalist Alicia Blü, and songwriter Gus Oliver, performing as a duo. Their set opened with a cover of Mumford and Son's 'Little Lion Man', and ended three songs later with their one original song, 'Louder', an empowering number, and delivered with a much more confident vocal performance. For an encore they provided a repeat rendition of their earlier Aurora cover, 'Running With The Wolves'.
Alex Kate's set was split pretty much down the middle, beginning with five of the older songs that she sang at the Norwich Arts Centre gig last year. They are mostly pop-based, and with the summery 'Summer Wagon' providing an uplifting tonic to a freezing cold January evening. The second half showcased some of her newer songs, all written and recorded over the last twelve months. The most recent of these was 'Catch the Wind', co-written with Gus Oliver. Together with the slower-paced 'Strangers', it probably came closest to justifying those Kate Bush comparisons. To be fair, Alex's voice does possess an operatic quality that might possibly be better suited to crossover than straightforward 'pop'. She prefers to describe her songs as being about the highs and lows of dating and, of these, my favourite is probably 'Sober', an ode to Dry January if ever there was one with its vocal refrain of “I want to kiss you when I'm sober”.
The seated audience is, somewhat awkwardly, requested to 'be upstanding' for the final song, 'High Club', a euphoric slice of climactic pop about lovers in ecstasy, followed by a rather odd acoustic performance of Fleetwood Mac's 'Dreams', conducted in the round with Alex in the middle and the audience strewn in and around the rows of chairs surrounding her.
Probably a great night for her friends and family. Slightly less memorable for inquisitive reviewers like myself.
