There is a tremendous amount of hype around Emmy right now, and it looks like she has played a blinder in terms of keeping her album till the right moment, getting the tour right and all those things. It IS about managing the buzz just as much as having something decent to say and play. And I guess it was the buzz that got Tom and me along there on a Tuesday night
I haven't been to the Ruby Lounge before. As a venue it gets 9/10 - There is a great downstairs where it all opens out at cellar level. It's a tiny bit cramped around the stage with a couple of badly placed pillars. There's a crush barrier and then the stage at floor height, which made me immediately think 'zoo' and said so to Tom. Which is really funny because Emmy said exactly the same thing from the other side of that barrier. But a NICE venue, 350 capacity for gigs, great vibe, great happy friendly staff
The support - God's Little Eskimo was rather more than a twee folky bloke who sang most of his songs about the sea. I really liked the way he built things on stage with sound loops and layers. Next up Younghusband were a pretty good band for the night, a nice injection of rock-ish-ness. They probably just needed a tiny bit of focus, but already have some engaging sub-pop-nirvana-ish strangled vocals
So Tom and I haven't driven all the way there to stand at the back. As soon as the support go off and there is all that on-stage jiggery-pokery to be done, we go and stand behind the peeps that are already there, so about two rows back.Unforunately the guy in front of us had his hair done by Side Show Bob, and his girl had obviously been so impressed that she decided on imitation.... so we were close to the stage but not a totally brilliant spot. And while we're still waiting Tom decides to get rid of our two beer bottles. There's a kind of unspoken convention that provided you've left someone there to keep your place, you can get back through the crowd to where you were. Not tonight though, this group of about 6 girls who had got there after us - delayed I think by visits to the beer shop - decided they weren't going to let Tom back through. "You're too tall, you should stand at the back. We're huge fans" so we're not already? - Anyhoo, we didn't argue too much, I stepped back as well and we ended up being able to see much better anyway now that Side Show Bob was off to one side. And these real huge fans? Spent the whole gig chatting to each other. You know who you are, girl in red dress.....
And how was Emmy? Well, I was impressed. She is quite quiet, not in her voice but in her demeanour. And incredibly self-assured. I could only describe it as like all the girls I knew when I was 17 who went to local girls' public school (that's English for dead posh) and just knew the world lay at their feet. She obviously expected an informed audience. At one point she said "Did you see what I did there? It should go 'fill your head with memories and I sang it as memory, like a computer'.." Er, OK..
The band were very tight considering they all seem to be in other bands. One song sounding like they were all jamming to their own tune then kind of miraculously coalesced at just the right moment. Nice.
And it was all almost very engaging. I enjoyed what I recognised from MySpace and the hastily iTunes'd album. Standout was probably "we almost had a baby" which is also IMHO quite funny. She does one song which is an homage to Hallelujah, but also nicks the riff (if you can describe anything by Leonard Cohen as having a riff). Is that valid? Can you nick the riff? or the sentiment? or is that a cover version? Don't know, but I liked it anyway.
She ended by thanking people who knew all the words, which wasn't us. I'm still yet to be convinced what it is about Emmy that'll lift her beyond all the other Amys and Anyas, but it was a decent enough night out
