Corinne Bailey Rae Live in London
Posted on 27. Feb, 2010 by Cheryl Frances in Entertainment, Events, Music
Event: Corinne Bailey Rae Live
Date: Wednesday 24th February 2010
Location: Shepherds Bush Empire, London
Time: 9pm
On a wet (very wet indeed) and rainy Wednesday night I took a well deserved break from my busy schedule to see the long awaited return of Corinne Bailey Rae. She’s been away for a while but with the release of her sophomore album ‘The Sea’ earlier this month a live show in my home town of London was well over-due.
Having had the pleasure of seeing Corinne live before, I eagerly anticipated round 2. As usual there was a little wait before the excited crowd (including Reggie Yates) got any action. The first action we did see was in the form of Corinne’s supporting act for the night Fyfe Dangerfield. I enjoyed his set he had a great voice and played an array of instruments from the guitar, to the banjo to the keyboard so it was highly entertaining. Although… he did do rather a lot of songs so the audience were pleased when he finished, especially as we were all eager to see the main event, CBR herself. Luckily we didn’t have to wait too long…
Corinne walked onto stage looking dazzling in a sparkly gold cat suit, big hair and her warm soft demeanour shining through. I doubt there are enough adjectives in the dictionary (or my vocabulary) to describe this woman. She is amazingly talented, humble, beautiful, sweet and sincere all rolled into one, and I am truly a fan.
She treated the audience to most of the songs from her new album, ‘Paris Nights New York Mornings’, ‘Closer’ ‘and ‘Are you Here’ being my personal favourites. However she did not disappoint the long standing fans by singing classics from her debut album including ‘Like a Star’, ‘Seasons Change’ and the crowd pleaser ‘Put Your Records On’. I am in awe at the amount of emotion Corinne puts into her performances and the way such a quiet and softly spoken lady manages to evoke such a strong emotional reaction from her audience.
When she sang ‘Like a Star’ one of the most beautiful and simple love songs of our generation in my opinion, obviously written for her late husband, the emotion she conveyed was so tangible. When she shed a few tears at the end I could see a few audience members shedding a tear too, not me of course… *shifty eyes*.
Something I admire about Corinne is that she has an extremely eclectic taste in music and through her performance you can tell she really knows and appreciates all genres of music. In addition to her own masterpieces, she also performed ‘Little Wing’ by Jimi Hendrix and the most soulful version I have ever heard of the Doris Day classic ‘Que Sera Sera’ I was literally blown away!
Corinne and her fantastic band entertained us for what must have been almost 2 hours but it literally flew by. As she said her thank yous and left the stage, the crowd roared for more, willing her to come back for an encore and the lady did not disappoint. She came back and sang the gorgeous ‘Til It Happens To You’ probably my favourite Corinne Bailey Rae song ever! The perfect end to the perfect evening…even the rain could not dampen my spirits after that!
Corinne Bailey Rae’s voice and whole aura is poetic, mellow, stunning and altogether magical, she’s is a must see live!
Sources: Pic 2: http://www.essence.com/images/mt/corrine-bailey-rae-300x425.jpg
I also attended this concert, I’m not the biggest Corinne Bailey Rae fan but I do respect her as an artist. I enjoyed her set from the new album because it appeared more natural to her and it looked like she enjoyed performing the tracks that had more “soul”. None the less the concert was very good and this article is accurate. Everybody look out for Fyfe Dangerfiled, he has the potential to be big.