Roisin Murphy live: amazing

We went to watch Roisin Muprhy live last week. It was amazing. Here is a review:

“Next time, more anarchy,” pouts Roisin Murphy from her position atop a heavily oversubscribed crowd barrier. And while her sentiment may be commendable, most of the audience would probably settle for “Next time, less jazz.”

Tonight sees the Irish electro psychopath giving textbook demonstrations of her best and worst sides. For the former, she wheels out seven-minute, kitchen sink versions of her biggest hits accompanied by kaleidoscopic rave visuals that both dazzle and terrify. For the latter, she sits on a stool and croons smoky lounge numbers towards a hat with a face.

While Roisin’s noodlier sojourns take her dangerously close to losing the crowd, the times she slips back into electropop superstar mode have them eating out of her wildly expressive hands.

Disco dancing with a huge reflective disc pulled down across her face, it’s easy to see why many people find Murphy’s visual style as captivating as her line in polished machine pop.

She opens the show with a salvo of Overpowered and You Know Me Better, tonight rendered as epic electro behemoths. Alongside mesmerising visuals, each builds until no one there – least of all Roisin – is quite sure what is going on.

After a regrettable BPM dip and several costume changes, Roisin blasts through some of her more uptempo numbers, including an encore featuring her version of Bryan Ferry’s Slave To Love, supercharged to the point where it sounds even more like the Doctor Who theme after a strong dose of poppers than normal.

She closes the set with a gingham deer strapped to her back, mock-fighting her dancers. If only all of the show could have been so entertaining.

Summary:

:: Ridiculous costume alert: basically two shop dummies strapped to her front and back.
:: Amazing dancing.
:: Disappointing jazz sections.
:: The good thing about Roisin is that, even with all the highly cultural performance aspects of her live show, you always get the sense she is having brilliant fun. Silly dancing, outlandish costumes and stomping around the stage like a little sparrow – you don’t get that at an Oasis gig.
:: This – minus the half hour of noodling balladry – is exactly how popstars should be.
:: Roisin is, let’s be honest here, incredibly fit.
:: Let’s have a video to celebrate:



Very good.

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