Photos by Pauline Hilton words by Kim Watson
Our first birthday acoustic extravaganza started with an 11 year old girl and ended with a set from a bright star on the rise headed for Nashville.
At 8.15pm, after an easily overcome guitar malfunction, the show commenced with Lexie Potgieter ‘s powerful opener – Adele’s Rolling in The Deep. Wow!
Tamara Littleton took to the stage saying “follow that” but her experience and passionate crooning made light work of her version of Creep.
Marion Tunstall delivered another scrumptious fizzing rendition of Summertime even though I had trouble with my B7 a few times using Angie’s much bigger guitar!
Teenage prodigy Jessie Godwin’s version of Popular was very well received and got her posted on Twitter by Emily Barker too!
Natalina Castiglioni delivered a pristine and powerful Never Tear Us Apart
Sonic Flute’s quirky cover of the Smith’s There Is A light That Never Goes out paid tribute to the Grove Cafe’s disco illuminations!
Clare Farrow’s Waterloo piss-take was water tight and closed the first set for all who needed the loo.
The next set started at about 9.15pm with Chris Paouros, Rachel Darnley-Smith & myself performing a haunting Your Ghost
Rachel Darnley Smith & Clare Shaw then gave everyone some finger clicking Fever
Sam Kurt cleverly combined her Duffy cover of Mercy with her own catchy composition called Stains.
Tracy Dover delivered a perfect Please, Please, Please Let met Get What I Want (Our second Smiths cover of the night),
before joining SULK (Angie et moi) to harmonise on our latest composition called Petit Mouchoirs (Little White Lies).
Jo Winning bravely tested out her newest song on the She17 crowd and Eva Destruktion went for a bold cover of Ani Di Franco’s You Had Time and pulled it off sweetly.
Rebecca Jade delivered her own original, edgy and up beat song to end this highly creative set.
After some thankyous and at about 10.15 Emily Barker was introduced to the She17 audience and played an amazing 45 minute set which included Tuesday, Nostalgia, Disappear, new songs Anywhere Away and a beautiful cover of Bruce Springsteen’s Tougher Than The Rest, culminating in an audience participative version of Calendar and a personal favourite Home, as an encore. Afterwards she stayed to chat and pose for pics with her new and existing fans and sign CDs whilst we packed up the gear and partied on til midnight.
A She17 party will be off to see Emily Barker and The Red Clay Halo on 19 November at St James’s Church, Piccadilly. See www.emilybarker.com/live/ for more info.
If you can’t wait until November Emily’s new side project will be released in August and sounds gorgeous. Find out more here http://www.emily-barker.com/2011/03/vena-portae.html