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With this tour nearly at an end, Teddy released a new single this week, 'I Should Get Up' and it got the crowd rockin' last night. You couldn't really say that about support act. To be fair to Sol Seppy, she’s definitely not a rockin' act and a somewhat strange choice for support. Apparently the 'next' Sparklehorse, with various keys/guitar and cello backing, Ms. Seppy’s breathy vocals are at their best on emotional 'growers'. Best of all was 'Slo Fuzz'. On a fashion point, it was good to see Ms. Seppy's hair is no longer the Blondie look of the 'The Bells Of 1 2' album cover.
Teddy Thompson tells us he lives in New York and the last time he was in Portsmouth was 6 months ago when he supported his friend Martha Wainwright at this venue. Clearly, he’s made an impact on the Wainwright type fans as they are back. The remainder seem generally an older than usual Wedgewood crowd. That's probably a result of his parentage, folk-rock icons Richard and Linda Thompson and the Radio 2 plays of the first single, 'Everybody Move It'.
In fact, the mixed crowd is somewhat symptomatic of his material. 'Everybody Move It' is one of his best, a folksy country banjo pickin' with hedonistic party story line lyrics. He owned up to listening to lots of George Jones recently and played a new track that edges towards Gram Parsons. There's also the album's title track, the poignant 'Separate Ways' that shows off his voice at it's sweetest. What with 'Turning The Gun On Myself', little wonder he's got on the bill for tribute gig to Leonard Cohen! But whilst the crowd liked 'I Wish It Was Over', it has a guitar sound that is reminiscent of some soft rock band.
He certainly seemed happy performing live and even got away with crowd banter about Pompey FC (which Gilles Peterson failed to do a few weeks before on the same stage). However, there was over long band in-joke and an anti-climatic encore duet with the lead guitarist Steve Shiltz (who was generally very good). Teddy then came back on his own for a further acoustic two-song encore including the b-side to the single, 'Bon Jovi Said'. For hardcore fans by then as the rest of the crowd were off for the last bus home. He is certainly very talented but he hasn't got the strength of material yet for such a long set. A prune and tinker between the rockin' songs and gentler tracks and it'd be fine.
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