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“I feel like I’m on a date with you all”, Rebecca Taylor admits rather awkwardly, such is the intimacy of Slow Club’s performance at St Mary’s Old Church in Stoke Newington.
Gigwise was on hand to witness the earlier of two sets that the Sheffield natives were playing on the night, which meant that, haven taken to the stage at half past six, the whole, wonderful evening - that was beguiling and charming in equal measure - was over an hour later.
Perhaps it was the fact tonight’s show was coming off the back of a recently completed and rapturously received UK tour, or maybe it was the understated beauty of their surroundings, but either way, Taylor and partner-in-crime Charles Watson demonstrated they are two artists at the very top of their game.
The full band backing that had accompanied them on said recent tour was absent , not that that fact detracted anything from the performance. On the contrary, the sparse arrangement coupled with heavenly harmonies complemented the celestial setting, resulting in a joyous from the first chord of set opener Tears right to the final, rather appropriate, “It’s over” lament of set closer, and Neil Young cover, Birds.
The set was interspersed with the kind of irreverent anecdotes that have become a stable of the Slow Club’s gigs, and more accurately the self-deprecating and endearing aesthetic of the band. Topics covered tonight include chance encounters with ham and pea soup vendors, how a deep muscle massage is something akin to torture and whether recently uncovered previous tour merchandise should be marketed as “vintage” or simply “old”.
Irreverence aside it will, quite rightly, be the unique brilliance of this performance that will live long in the memory, whether it be the poignant delicacy of You, Earth or Ash (written about Taylor’s grandfather, “The only man that’s never dumped me”), or the pin-drop gracefulness of Two Cousins, this truly was a date to remember.
