For my second gig in February - and third of 2024 - I finally (finally!) got to see Emily Breeze (the person and the band) at The Fleece in Bristol on Friday night.
Emily's been releasing music for the best part of two decades and I even had a song of hers on a cover mounted CD with long-gone local listings magazine, Venue. However, my Damascene moment came in early 2022, when I (re)discovered Emily's music via a Barry Adamson remix of her single Ego Death, which led me to second album, Rituals (2019). I was a fully signed up fan from that point on.
In July 2022 I wrote that "I've not yet had the experience of seeing Emily Breeze live in concert but I'm hoping to address that in the near future.". Eighteen months and several missed opportunities later, I finally got to do it and no spoilers to say that my expectations were high yet Emily and band not only surpassed them, Friday night's show was into the stratosphere.
But before the main event, there was a supporting set by fellow Bristol-based artists Mumble Tide to enjoy. And enjoy them I did.
Mumble Tide are a core couple of Gina Leonard and Ryan Rogers, who met via Gumtree and have gone on to release music that's described as "kinda country, kinda synthy, kinda moody". They made their debut on this blog last month as part of my marathon selection of covers of I'm On Fire by Bruce Springsteen. I liked this and the A-side Sleepy Heads so I was looking forward to seeing them live on stage.
For this show, Mumble Tide were fleshed out to a five-piece band, with added saxophone, bass and drums. Given how quickly this line-up was apparently pulled together and notwithstanding the occasional fluff, the group seemed incredibly relaxed and on it, making for an enriching, entrancing performance.
Gina's voice wonderfully alternates between delicate and powerful as the song demands, definitely one of the defining "kinda country" elements.
The only downside to the half-hour set were the clusters of audience "scenesters" who were more interested in having a conversation with their mates than enjoy the experience in front of them. At one point, Ryan called them out and I ended up moving nearer the stage to escape the inane jabber behind me. FFS, if you're having to shout to make yourself heard, piss off outside and have the conversation there. I'm here for the music, not your self-important, entitled musings...!
Sadly, it happened again as Gina announced then started the final song. "Come on guys, one more song", she pleaded which she shouldn't have had to. I didn't catch any of the song titles but this was a beautiful closer, just Gina and Ryan with the latter on accordion which just elevated the vocals wonderfully.
I really hope that Mumble Tide got enough positive energy from the audience to realise that the majority of people were loving what they did on stage. I'll be visiting them again next Bandcamp Friday to get their back catalogue and make sure they get all of the purchase proceeds. I also hope I get to see Mumble Tide perform live again, whether as a duo or a full band, and hopefully with a longer set.
As I was entering The Fleece at 7.30pm, Emily Breeze, passed me on the way out. It's one of those moments where I spectacularly fail to be spontaneous. I should've have said something to convey my excitement at being there. That said, I likely would have ended up sounding like Nigel Tufnell in a climatic scene from This Is Spinal Tap, telling bandmate David St. Hubbins to have a good show. Besides, there was a queue of hand-stamped people behind me wanting to get in, the moment passed and I carried on into the venue.
In my mind, Emily and band are already superstars, so it was a reality check seeing them on stage setting up their own kit after Mumble Tide's warm up set. That said, Emily even managed to make fixing a mike stand look effortlessly cool.
The band were all on stage and ready to go for some minutes, awaiting some final technical tweaks, so there was no grand entrance as such. Not needed, to be honest. The audience erupted when the first bars of Ego Death kicked in and Emily uttered the opening line, "Every day I wake up praying that my place of work will have been burnt down" and for the next hour or so, it was a constant high.
Emily Breeze the band is Emily (vocals, guitar, glamour), Rob Norbury (lead guitar), George Caveney (bass), Helen Stanley (keyboards/synths) and Andy Sutor (drums). They look as good as they sound, distinct and individual performances without grandstanding and elevating the overall performance to a level way beyond the modest confines of The Fleece.
And then there's Emily. I'm usually one to stand a little back and to the side at gigs, my days of jumping into the mosh long gone (though to be honest, relatively rare back in the day). However, the earlier audience chit-chat shitshow had pushed and positioned me more front and centre so I had a head on view of Emily, between two of the several supporting pillars. As a result, it honestly felt at times like Emily was staring me straight in the eyes as she sang. I like to think the lines from Cosmic Evolution,
In a major breakthrough scientists have discovered
That you are fabulous
You are a fabulous pain in the arse
That you are fabulous
You are a fabulous pain in the arse
were meant just for me on Friday night.
The 13-song set drew heavily on last year's spectacular third album, Rapture, unsurprisingly one of my musical highlights of 2023.
There are a couple of songs from Rituals early on, the aforementioned Ego Death and Limousines. We're then treated to current single The Beatniks and the other two songs from the upcoming Second Rodeo EP, namely 1997 and We Were Lovers. All three continue to raise the bar from what has gone before and show an artist and band truly at the top of their game.
In a live environment,
it felt like a greatest hits show, the songs so embedded in my psyche
though imbued with an energy and sense of scale that transcends the
original studio versions. It's impossible to pick a favourite though I was especially pleased to hear Ego Death, The Bell, Confessions Of An Ageing Party Girl and the new songs.
Emily is a mesmerising performer. I've had the good fortune to see Debbie Harry, Siouxsie Sioux and PJ Harvey live in concert and Emily conveys the same power and assurance on stage, whilst making you feel like you're the only person in the audience and she's singing just for you. No cartwheeling histrionics here, though she does end up on her back playing guitar at one point, thankfully without the Spinal Tap-esque issues of getting back up again. Yet her understated stage movements are wonderfully poised and photogenic and prove that less is more, the performance speaking for itself.
The show is over all too soon, though following blistering Ordinary World, the band 'encore' (they don't leave the stage) to close the set is an unexpected and utterly brilliant version of Paul Simon's Graceland which needs to be heard to be believed.
And then it was all over, the lights came up and I left before the night continued with One More Time, the "90's + 00's party" starting afterwards. I checked my phone. It was 9.45pm! Emily and entourage were decamping to the Seven Stars pub next door, with an open invitation to the audience to come along. I didn't, but I'd already had pretty much a perfect night.
Today's selection, as yesterday, doesn't match the setlist song for song. For one thing, the Second Rodeo EP isn't out until April and only The Beatniks is currently available to purchase. The cover of Graceland also exists only as a live version. Luckily, not that many songs are duplicated from the Dubhed selection, Confessions, that I posted in June 2023 though I was tickled to find that the set also opened and closed with Ego Death and Ordinary World. So, what you've got here is 10 of the 13 songs, coming in at under 40 minutes.
If you're quick, you may still be able to get tickets for Emily's upcoming dates in Cardiff, Leeds, Brighton, Bedford and Cambridge. If you make it, you are in for a real treat, albeit the start of a lifelong commitment to a fabulous artist and band. Embrace the obsession.
1) Ego Death (Album Version) (2019)
2) Oh, Anna Nicole (2023)
3) Limousines (2019)
4) The Beatniks (2024)
5) Hey Kidz (2020)
6) The Bell (2023)
7) Confessions Of An Ageing Party Girl (Daddy G vs Robot Club Remix By Grant Marshall & Stew Jackson) (2023)
8) Cosmic Evolution (2023)
9) Part Of Me (2023)
10) Ordinary Life (Radio Edit) (2022)
2019: Rituals: 1, 3
2022: Ordinary Life EP: 10
2023: Confessions Of An Ageing Party Girl EP: 7
2023: Rapture: 2, 5, 6, 8, 9
2024: Second Rodeo EP: 4
You can find Confessions, the previous Emily Breeze selection, here.
A final nod to the photographs from Friday night that I've used for this post. The headline photo of the full Emily Breeze band is courtesy of Gavin McNamara, the lovely photo of Gina and Ryan from Mumble Tide (my crop) is by Chris Jones. The grainy, amateurishly framed pictures of Emily are all the work of my ageing (party) phone.
