Live Review

Jesca Hoop – Captain’s Rest, Glasgow

• 24th Mar 2011

The Captain’s Rest in Glasgow is a strange little venue. The room is below a pub and holds no more than 60 people. It is dark and dim, and looks to have faded over the years. The sound quality is usually excellent though, even if the lighting is poor, especially for the photographers in the audience.

Jonathan Sebastian Knight was first to emerge onto the tiny stage, over an hour after the scheduled door opening time. By now most of the crowd seemed happy just for something to be happening.

Knight is a local singer/ songwriter but his repertoire of rather mournful songs performed on an electric guitar did little to liven the mood. There were some decent guitar flourishes, but his melancholy subject matter and repetitive lyrics fell rather flat.

After another delay, Jesca Hoop walked onto stage and began the task of warming the audience up. Clad in a long black dress she simply picked up her guitar and began to play Dig This Record. Her deep voice was strong and the occasional sections in a higher register demonstrated the fine range that she has.

Whispering Light, the first of several tracks from Hoop’s most recent album Hunting My Dress was next, following a bittersweet introduction. The song tells of smoking an illegal substance with her mother, who at the time was suffering from a cancer that was later to take her life.

Hoop was then joined by her backing band: a drummer, another guitarist and two female backing vocalists, who added some lovely harmonies on Money, one of only two tracks played from debut album Kismet. Hoop sung this one without her guitar, allowing a more expressive performance.

At the centre of the set was the excellent City Bird from the soon to be released Snowglobe EP and a new song, Back To Love, which could figure on a future album.

Her newer work is less folk orientated and perhaps more focussed that some of the more ethereal early work. Hoop, it seems, is learning to use the range of her voice in a more controlled manner and the effect is a positive one. But on several occasions she lost the place within a song, or forgot the lyrics, which took away from an otherwise excellent performance.

Food At Your House, a song written for the Manchester rain, was performed to a reggae beat and went down particularly well with the crowd, as did Angel Mom and the closing Hunting My Dress.

There was time for a brief encore and Jesca returned alone to play Love and Love Again before disappearing into the dark at the back of the stage.

Jesca Hoop is talented and charismatic. She charmed the audience as well as entertaining them and they were willing to forgive her mistakes. There is much more to come from Hoop in the future, it seems, and I’m looking forward to hearing it.