Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10
Say what you will about the modern age, moan about it being over commercial, intrusive, noisy to the point of petulant or even just plain out of step with how you remember it from your childhood but as a marketing tool to get you sit up and take notice of life outside your front door, the modern age is unsurpassable.
Helena Johnson’s name has been inescapable in recent online media and thankfully so. Whether your brain finely tunes out certain other stuff or the peak interest in someone’s music, whittled down from the normal eleven piece to an acoustic driven squeezed four for the purposes of this one gig for Stillhet’s Music Strings and Things at Studio 2, is a mystery but one wonderful to investigate and unravel.
The mystery is enhanced by Ms. Johnson’s voice, if this enjoyable to hear in a smaller setting such as Studio 2 and with only Nadia Bounasser providing backing vocals, Ben Gladwin on piano and Lara Simpson on violin, then the mind raced frantically to remember where the diary was so you could write down the date of her next gig in which to appreciate the overall experience.
Opening the night in what was an evening of female dominating presence; Helena Johnson gave a sterling performance that caught the attention fully and with songs such as Right Here For You and No You Didn’t kicking off proceedings, the thought of advertising as a marketing tool, worked for once with justifiable cheer and resolve.
With I’m Over You, a very special reading of Sam Smith’s Stay With Me, This Love’s Right Now and the forthcoming single Take Me Home Tonight all combining with pace, charm and patient feminine daring, Helena Johnson and her stripped back team had the most wonderful of opening slots in Stillhet’s history of events at Parr Street.
Like anything in life, it’s impossible to think too much on how the voice of a songwriter will crossover to a bigger production but all the signs were there that Helena Johnson is going to make a lot of people sit up and take notice over now.
Helena Johnson releases the single Take Me Home Tonight on March 22nd at the East Village arts Club. Tickets are priced at £3 in advance and £4 on the door.
Ian D. Hall