Emmy The Great: Stoke Sugarmill: 22.2.09
Emmy The Great seems to have been around forever without really having done too much. She was, notably, to Noah and the Whale, what Lisa Hannigan was to Damien Rice, but has since gone her own way and has this year put out her debut album, First Love. She's a big part of the thriving anti-folk scene and among the throngs of female singer-songwriters, she in a way needs to prove that she will still be around when the people that matter get bored of girls with guitars.
Amongst styrofoam cups of tea and a concoction of members of various bands, including parts of support band Younghusband, Emmy looks blankly out from the stage. But, effortlessly, she muses about Leonard Cohen, almost having a baby and even SXSW, somehow juxtaposing the anti-folk of JayMay with the dry wordings of Regina Spektor. She all the while keeps straight faced and seemingly motionless other than the strumming of her acoustic, even when the drums shuffle in from some beat down Tennessee bar.
There is minimal talk, Emmy only introduces her latest single 'First Love', just sips of tea in-between songs and trading of instruments by her band members, from acoustic to bass to violin to mandolin. Even the drummer picks up a trumpet at one point. Its no fuss, just strong song after strong song, but it also makes her look detached from the songs, you want to see her involved in her songs, you want them to look like they mean something much more to her.
The melodies that get repetitive and tiresome on record, live, become the intricate compositions that they really are underneath, There's the sugary sweet acoustica of 'We Almost Had A Baby' or the full band stomp of 'Dylan' or the slow waltzing ballad 'Everything Reminds Me Of You,' all of which have that something extra live, possibly it's how simple she makes it all look that make them that bit better.
Emmy The Great shouldn't disappear when the next fad kicks in, she's taking a tired formula down a very different path, a beaten track of rickety bridges and wooden carts, sitting on the back of a wagon singing songs with some straw in her teeth. Somehow, I don't think she'll be alone down it.
Words: Jack Phillips
Photos: Claire Davies
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