- Tue, 2009-03-24 17:15
Lilly Allen live @ Southampton Guildhall 19/03/2009
The role of a support act has two main purposes; warm up the crowd and lay the atmospheric foundations for the night ahead. The choice of La Roux as the support act for 22 year old queen of myspace Lily Allen was a well engineered move that enabled the evening to slide slightly left-field of the quirky pop (with a truck load of banter) that many expected.
5 Mac books, two synth-mac players and a selection of neon lights graced the stage. The music began and the stage was still empty. Cue Elly Jackson. Striding onto the stage with a golden knee length, large collared jacket, tight trousers and her character defining quiff, she grabbed the mic and with seconds to spare launched into current single In For The Kill. With a voice as strong live as it is on her recordings, her tom boy-ish charm took only a little time to morph into a stylish confidence, and she proceeded to soar through a 6 track set that blended stripped down synth-led melody with her distinctive voice.
Over to Miss.Allen. Now, on the one hand we got what we expected. Pint in hand, Pat Butcher earrings, an outfit change (tight purple dress into very similar tight white dress) lots of giggling and familiar new album tracks sprinkled with some old favourites. However, La Roux’s forward thinking opening laid the foundations for Lily’s set.
When Lily Allen first exploded onto the scene in 2006 we didn’t quite know what to expect. In 2009, even with a more mature second album, her public profile has been raised so significantly since her dramatic entrance (TV show, fashion range, gossip mag appearances galore) that her tour had the potential to become a nostalgic, look-at-that-girl from the magazines type spectacle, rather than a gig in its own right.
Instead, Lily shook things up. Well known former single LDN morphed into a short rendition of Calvin Harris and Dizzee Rascal’s Dance Wiv Me. Former number one single The Fear ended with a short DnB interlude followed by an exerpt from Kid Cudi’s Day N Nite, and the set finished with a full cover of Britney’s Womanizer. The album tracks were there, she played Oh My God, her cover of the Kaiser Chiefs single taken from Mark Ronson’s album Version, and everyone joined in when she played first single Smile. Lovely.
Lily Allen hasn’t got a vocal range that will knock you off your feet and her music isn’t a deep, insightful exploration into the unknown. But what she has got is the essence of modern pop music. Her tour proved that she is still moving forward, that pop music is more than a formulaic repetition from a local radio station, and that with the right combination of style, charisma and forward thinking, (which both Lily and La Roux have in bucket loads) you can go along to a gig by a number one artist and get a lot more than you originally expected.
