Gig Reviews: Anna Calvi, Nottingham Bodega

by NTingay

Anna Calvi, Nottingham Bodega Friday 25^th February 2011

Anna Calvi walks on stage, puts the Telecaster over her shoulder and we’re off into another realm for just under an hour. An audience of wide age range are rapt, clearly engrossed with the spectacle of witnessing something special. Every so often, you happen upon an artist who can maybe tick one or two boxes, but it’s a very rare thing (to these eyes and ears anyway) to see and hear the real thing in such an intimate setting.

The Bodega isn’t the most refined venue, but they’ve a habit of hosting acts who will clearly be upgrading to much larger venues with in the next few months. It’s greatly rewarding to be in the audience tonight and reminds you of the thrill of real music played by real musicians (as Prince likes to say) with no room gimmicks, backing tracks, auto-tune or anything which would detract from what we have tonight; raw emotion.

Rider to the Sea opens the set; it’s all about the guitar and the sounds taken from it. Necks are strained to watch the finger picking and strumming, the left hand dancing up and down the neck. It blends effortlessly into ‘No more words’ and we finally get to hear the voice. As an instrument it is used to create intense dramatic, emotional effect and moves from a seductive whisper to a load roar which genuinely shocks some people in the audience. It seems to coming from elsewhere almost, it is that big in places. Jeff Buckley would be a reasonable reference point in the way he had a totally natural ability to hold notes and stretch words and meaning as his voice would ride the octave range.

Anna now has the audience firmly on her side as the opening notes of ‘Blackout’ are created via the harmonium; special mention must be made to Mally Harpaz for her work on this instrument and percussion as well as Daniel Maiden-Wood on drums, who also provides the only backing to Anna Calvis’s voice. The threesome create a huge sound which is surely destined for theatres and halls; in a venue as small as this, the sound rises, falls and crashes yet remains crystal clear. Every word and note can be heard, and it only adds to the realisation that this will no doubt be the last time you get to stand so close to such a performer.

There is an almost hushed reverence by midway through the set; even the punters who couldn’t prise themselves from the adjacent bar consider the performance worthy of toning down their own conversations. The audience is now fully enraptured, and onside; the cheers between songs get louder and more prolonged as the set flourishes past ‘The Devil’ towards ‘Love won’t be leaving’ as the set closer.

The cheers rise and the clapping bring the three back out for an encore which ends with a version of ‘Jezebel’ almost taking this writer to a Parisian café in the space of a few minutes. Anna Calvi stands smiling from ear to ear and looking not a little uncomfortable at this adulation from Nottingham. The crowd continue to applaud which cause Anna to ask if we could go to all her shows. On this evidence many of us would love to. ‘Play more’, ‘Play ten more’ which heralds the response that Anna doesn’t have ten more songs…….’Play the same ones again’ quips the punter next to me.

The sense of a true happening is only heightened further by discovering that Anna sustained an injury which prevented her from continuing the tour after tonight. My advice would be to hang onto your tickets for the rescheduled dates.

By Neil Tingay