Chris's Corner: Emmy the Great @ The Brudenell Social Club, Leeds, 9th October 2011.

Here we go shitheads! Probably one of the best show reviews I've ever read: adding a master of a piece to his growing collection, homie Chris recollects a "nice" night out at the Brudenell featuring Emmy The Great:

We were sat in the cafe at the end of our street listening to avante garde jazz played by fantastic musicians in white turtlenecks when we decided to go and see Emmy the Great. Rachna had been umming and ahhing because she wanted to go and see another gig next week and couldn’t afford both, but she decided to come with me. We put the chess sets and dominoes away and slinked out as best we could, trying not to catch anyone on the waiting staffs eye due to guilt about having sat there for an hour without ordering anything. Ben and Serbia headed into town, and Rachna and I started off for the Brudenell, discussing whether we’d rather be stabbed multiple times by a smelly old man and then pissed upon till we croaked, or die peacefully asleep in bed one sunny Sunday morn but live five years fewer. It was a real philosophical debate I can tell you and it kept us occupied with hypotheticals and pontifications all the way there.
 

I had sort of wanted to see Emmy the Great play since I saw she was coming to Leeds a few weeks ago, but I had harboured a small doubt that she might be disappointing, and that £12.50 was a little too much to gamble in order to find out. I mean, if she was a horse, the odds wouldn’t be favourable. I’d put two pounds each way maybe. Anyway, the girl at the entrance asked for £15. Fuck! I looked at Rachna and I think I muttered something about it being ‘rather expensive’ that made me sound like an old man, but we paid our money and went inside. I had to buy a beer to get over the damage to my wallet. I had given the girl twenty quid and she hadn’t even had the decency to pay me back a fiver, just five heavy pound coins, each one sitting in my pocket and weighing me down, having a good time at my expense. 

Then we went and found a place to stand by the edge of the stage. There was quite a lot of people to be honest: ranked out of all the times I’ve been to the Brudenell it was up there in a category I call ‘fairly busy’. There was a bit of sound-checking, and then Emmy stepped on stage, by herself. I knew she was good looking before but wow, if I was from London then I would describe her as ‘buff ting’ or ‘peng’ or something appropriate like that. She was pretty much beautiful. She looked around the room a bit, finger picked a C chord for a few seconds on a large glittery hollow-body electric, fiddled with a few knobs and then began. She has a great voice and I know she writes lyrics which are shockingly good at times, but I couldn’t really connect with this first song. Halfway through, in a break in the singing she looked around the crowd and definitely looked at me for about three quarters of a second, maybe more! The look she gave me was probably more disdain than desire, but it set my imagination of down a chain of events where she comes back to my place and has a threesome with me and my guitar. I didn’t even realise the first song was over, I was too busy inspecting her flawless jaw line and wondering how much further forward I might have to shuffle in order to get a glimpse up her skirt.

 In all seriousness the lyrics were a little too distant for me to relate to in that first song. Something about shivah, and an elephants head got mentioned too. Then her band came onstage, and they played about eight or nine songs, the majority of which were off her second album which I haven’t heard. To be honest, it was all a bit nice and poppy-folky. The drum beat and bass gave a great rhythm to the songs that led to me finding myself just nodding my head and not paying much attention to the words that were being sung. It was easy listening, and it always sounded good, but it was just a bit bland and lacking in edge for me. The lyrics and solo acoustic guitar work were what I had really wanted to hear. 

Then the guitarist and drummer left the stage and they announced the last song which involved Emmy singing while accompanied by emotional keyboard and a bit of sporadic bass. It was nice but it meant nothing to me. Then they left, and after a few shouts for encore Emmy came back on and started taking requests. This was by far the best bit of the evening. We got to hear four more songs, among them ‘Canopies and Drapes’ featuring lyrics like:

 Later on me and a bottle will hook up to have some fun
Then I'll call your house at twelve to let you know that I'm drunk
Say I'm sorry Mr C, I was just looking for your son
How are you, incidentally, do you know if he's out alone?
There is this book he lent to me something like seven months ago
I'm gonna burn it in the street be so kind as let him know

So overall, it was nice, but I think that words sums it up entirely. It was only nice and not much else. It was like having a chocolate hobnob and a cup of tea whilst checking your emails and putting on your favourite pair of socks; nice, yet plainly lacking.

Brudenell take heed: I feel that instead of £15, £7 would be a fair price to pay if I was to consider attending another of her gigs and eye fucking her again.