This is the opening night of LoneLady’s October Tour 2022. On this ten-date jaunt around England she will mostly appear in towns and cities where she has never previously played. After a year and a half of constant touring with a band to promote her third album, Former Things, the Manchester-based musician, songwriter, singer and producer Julie Campbell is now about to fly solo, playing what she describes beforehand as “uniquely special, intimate performances” of material that will be drawn from across LoneLady’s three studio albums. There is also the tantalising suggestion that she may play a cover.
LoneLady’s song selection for this tour comes to us shrouded in mystery and as this first night unfolds it is certainly full of some most welcome surprises. ‘(I Can See) Landscapes’ from her second album, Hinterland, makes an early appearance in the set, its serrated guitar accentuated by the rows of inter-war suburban semis flashing by as their grainy, desolate, despondent images are projected onto the large screen behind where Campbell stands.
LoneLady concludes with two further songs from that 2015 album – ‘Red Scrap’ and ‘Mortar Remembers You’ – neither of which, you suspect, would ordinarily feature on her set list. Campbell confirms as much by reflecting that “it has been…interesting…playing these songs I don’t usually play”, her slight hesitation in the middle of this statement perhaps suggesting she may not have been entirely satisfied with this performance.
But from here it did feel like a particularly brave and ultimately successful departure from her customary live practices by LoneLady. ‘Have No Past’ from her debut album Nerve Up sounds just as urgent and as fresh as it did upon its release twelve years ago. And the choice of cover, New Order’s ‘Cries and Whispers’ is positively inspired as she relocates her fellow Mancunians’ song into something verging upon a monolithic dance floor filler. And just in case it all becomes a little too unfamiliar, LoneLady gives us the reassuring proto-funk of ‘(There Is No) Logic’, the stand-out single from Former Things albeit a version of which that lies much nearer to The Other Two Remix which will see the full light of day this Friday as part of the Former Things >> Re-Formed 4-track EP.
Earlier in the evening another bold and innovative female artist assumed the role of support act and carried it off with considerable aplomb. She is Mayshe Mayshe, the solo project of the local writer-producer Alice Rowan. She tells us that she “writes songs about feeling anxious and sad…but in a fun way.” And through a delightful six-song set – four of which, including recent single ‘Dark Mountain’, will appear on her second album, Indigo, which is due for self-release on 11th November – Mayshe Mayshe achieves that perfect pop dichotomy by balancing the bleak with the beautiful. The last two songs, ‘Zachter’ – sung in Dutch – and ‘Mymble On The Little Things’ are both fearless pieces of positivity.
All photos – Simon Godley
More photos of LoneLady at The Crescent, York
More photos of Mayshe Mayshe at The Crescent, York
