Joan Wasser’s intimate, intricate songs have a powerful emotional undertow that goes well with whisky in the post-midnight hour, when even big boys cry.
Such can be their effect on record that when I last saw her play, they seemed almost underpowered in a live setting.
There was none of that this time at her sparkling Concorde gig on Sunday.
Glammed up and looking very un-cop-like with her ace band Joan As Policewoman, she even had someone calling out to turn down the bass.
With a soulful Eternal Flame from her brilliant first album Real Life, a cover of the Hendrix song Fire, which contrived to be raunchier than the original (“Slow down rover, let Joanie take over,” she crooned – you would) and a moving Keeper Of The Flame to round things off, the heat factor was high.
Yet it was in quieter moments when Wasser showed her authority. A textbook exercise in soft power.
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