Anna Calvi – Hove All Saints Church – 11^th February 2014

Anna Calvi is preceded in this truly beautiful venue by Woman’s Hour and their ethereal electronica. Their performance is pretty much faultless. However, their music lacks fire, or indeed a spark of any kind. The lyrics are minimal, mostly consisting of one line repeated ad infinitum. Also, like many bands today, a great deal of what is heard come from a laptop. Having said that, this is still very much a live performance, in contrast to other bands I’ve seen (hi Chvrches) who are bordering on karaoke.

Thankfully Woman’s Hour are quickly forgotten as Anna takes the stage. She’s dressed in red and has her hair down. She looks much looser and more relaxed than when I’ve seen her before.

Anna starts off with Suzanne & I which instantly makes me think how extraordinarily her vocals are. Especially so as they are a relatively recent addition to her sonic armoury – she only began singing in her twenties. However, it’s as a guitarist that she truly astonishes. Her guitar technique is fascinating to watch: whether it be the vicious bottleneck during Cry, the wonderfully fluid showcase that is Rider To The Sea, the pealing bell arpeggios of Piece By Piece, the controlled feedback that ends Carry Me Over, or Anna dragging her mic stand down the neck of her guitar at the close of Love Of My Life.

However, the key to an Anna Calvi performance is the band’s (and Anna Calvi is very much a band) heightened sense of dynamics and their depth of feeling. Sing To Me is tender, I’ll Be Your Man absolutely blazes whilst Love Of My Life is the closest they get to conventionally rocking out. There is very little that is conventional about Anna or the band though. In terms of both composition and performance this is imaginative music with a capital ‘I’. Mally Harpaz playing the frame of her marimba with a violin bow is just one example of this.

The set unsurprisingly focusses on the current album One Breath. With Anna Calvi it is always best to expect the unexpected though. At one point the band leave her to perform a solo cover of Bruce Springsteen’s Fire, which she very much makes her own.

The band return and the main set finishes with Desire and Love Won’t Be Leaving. Encores of Bleed Into Me, Blackout and Jezebel follow. An hour and a half has gone very quickly! Anna Calvi is becoming one of those artists who make great records, but are even better live. Go see her!

                                                                                                               Mark Kelly