Beth Orton - Do No Harm - Hinako Omori
Do I or don’t I make the effort this evening to get out of the house post London Marathon and post Covid? Well of course, I do FFS! The one and only Beth Orton is in the ‘Fine City’ for goodness’s sake and it’s her home City at that and she doesn’t get to play here that often either, so get your backside out of the house I tell myself.
Good news. I made the effort, and it was of course well worth it.
The support, this evening came from the quite brilliant Do No Harm, think of The XX without the dance beats, they make evocative, emotionally stirring and quite beautiful music together and look fabulous too. They leave me with a strong need to check them out further online which is proving to be quite difficult as I set about writing up this review, but that makes me even more determined, even though the world wide web fails me in my quest! I hope that we will be hearing more from them soon whoever they are and wherever they next appear.
Next up is Hinako Omori who also plays in Beth’s band as it turns out a bit later, she is sweet, is clearly very talented and immensely popular judging by her large following on Spotify, that’s accompanied by her impressive back catalogue. But it’s quite a difficult listen for yours truly. Her electronic sounds and voice do get a bit lost in the NAC rafters for me this evening. She may have been better coming on before Do No Harm?
And so, onto the main event, Beth Orton with her eagerly anticipated return to Norwich.
Now in her 51st year, she is looking quite magnificent in a denim trouser suit and tanned cowboy boots. Her folktronica sound is now the stuff of legend and she is widely respected and regarded around the planet. So here she is tonight, to promote her 8th studio album, the magnificent Weather Alive.
She kicks off with the said album’s title track, that’s very swiftly followed by current single Friday Night and a set list that in the main features tracks from the new album.
So, what of Beth Orton then? Always sweet and sometimes maybe shy at times, but truly captivating, beautiful, very uplifting and backed by a quite incredible band of super talented musicians that are a joy to watch and listen too tonight. She alludes to the fact that it feels a bit awkward playing here and you could feel that she felt under pressure at times, but what the hell, hopefully we made her feel relaxed and she soon settled into it.
She finds time to reminisce about being back in Norwich today and visiting a certain City centre shop this afternoon, where she may well have taken part in a bit of teenage shop lifting back in the day? With nose pressed firmly up against the window earlier, she took in its aroma through the glass window as its closed on a Monday! Maybe the shops owner knew that she was back in the area!?
Twice during the set, someone yells out “, we love you Beth” and she comes straight back on each occasion with “I love you too”, yes you can really feel that love is in the air tonight on her homecoming. A couple of times she stops a song and goes back to the start, most notably during the opening minute of She Cries Your Name, but it’s never a problem to hear the opening bars of that track for a second time now, is it?
Central Reservation alongside the latter is extremely well received, you can’t beat a bit of nostalgia alongside some cracking new material now, can you?
Its most certainly a Monday night, but with Orton’s restrains still lingering in my ears, it’s been delightful, very special indeed and it feels much more like a Friday night and that’s a good thing, right? The local girl has done well, hasn’t she?
