Live Review: Jeremy Warmsley @ Hoxton Bar and Kitchen, October 20th 2008
Jay Jay Pistolet, a favourite here at FFS, opened to a room so hushed that the police sirens on Old Street were audible. He delighted as he struggled with a coca-cola high and a messily-stringed mandolin to deliver a particularly stunning rendition of ‘Happy Birthday You’, easily in the top 10 love songs ever.
Regular visitors will know that we make no bones about our passion for Peggy Sue, who joined Warmsley for a number of gigs on this particular tour. I shan’t go on and on, but their cover of Missy Elliot’s ‘All N My Grill’ was just swell, and Katy Klaw’s delight at seeing herself reflected between Jack Peñate’s legs in a giant mirror above the bar drew hearty laughter from the audience.
With a genealogy that straddles the Channel and a musical career which already spans multiple locations and genres, Jeremy Warmsley seemed perfectly at home in this splendid little venue in ‘trendy’ Hoxton. Some might say that he owned the stage, ensconced behind a keyboard bedecked in twinkly icicle lights.
Warmsley is currently touring to promote his new album ‘How We Became’ and the majority of his set was therefore drawn from this record. Tracks of note include single ‘Dancing with the Enemy’, a sweet narrative objecting to the intrusion of prejudice in matters of the heart.
‘If He Breaks Your Heart’ is full of delicate threats of acts of violence against a despised love rival. Warmsley’s sardonic introduction to this song elicited a diaphanous flutter of laughter from his oh-so-polite audience.
The set ended with a spiffing cover of New Order’s ‘Temptation’ which morphed inexplicably into Elbow’s ‘Any Day Now’ – a definite crowd-pleaser. This reviewer was left strangely unmoved by the headline entertainment, but there is no questioning the musical proficiency or popularity of this electro-folk troubadour, who will doubtless go very far indeed and prove my whimsy wrong.
7/10
Words: Helen True
