Amy Winehouse Brixton Academy Review

Review by: Kim Hillyard

Recently Amy Winehouse has been the focus of much speculation, rumour and unwanted media attention. Last Thursday night she arrived 50 minutes late on stage at Brixton Academy. However…this is not a tale full of hidden serpents and half truths. This is a review of an artist.

On Thursday evening Amy Winehouse delivered. Whether she missed her bus to Brixton Academy or was helping a cat down from a tree was of no bother to the crowd from the moment she opened her mouth and let out her soul. After a quick apology at the end of her first number Addicted, 'Sorry Im late' before moving onto her next song, the only people likely to feel any form of mild annoyance would have been the babysitters with an early start the next morning.

Amy Winehouse has a voice so mesmerising that to hear it live, filling every corner of her mercury music prized album Back to Black, is a very special thing indeed. Whether it is pursuing the broken corners of 'Love is a Losing Game' or stylishly adding character, charisma and soul in a way that only she can to 'Tears Dry On Their Own' she proved that she possesses a music within her so distinctive that she should be heralded as one of the greatest female artists of all time.

With an energetic encore of her most famous covers, Toots and the Maytals 'Monkey Man' and The Zutons 'Valerie' Amy was applauded and cheered long after she left the stage for the final time. On this Thursday night the audience were witness to an artist achieving what she originally set out to do. Perform her music. Amy Winehouse proved to us all that her home was on the stage, not on the front of a tabloid newspaper.