Lucy Rose at Barrow Library with support from ‘Oh Sister’
As a member of the GetItLoud team I may be slightly biased in saying last night was utterly awesome, but I’m sure any member of the audience would agree with me. Lucy was one of the nicest people I’ve ever worked with, sweet, polite, respectful and totally unaware of her own fabulousness. The backstage atmosphere most relaxed I’ve ever seen it; the the gig was run almost entirely by capable women, and Lucy had requested that all support acts for her gigs were female singer songwriters.
Since I was working on the doors collecting tickets I didn’t get to see much of the support act, ‘Oh Sister’, but had a good idea of the type of audience we had; it was mostly young adults, which is always great to see, and quite a few young girls, one of whom had a very good taste in footwear.
The audience packed right to the back of the library, with some people sitting cross legged on the floor, some standing and some on borrowed chairs and pouffes. She had a gorgeous voice, not straining a single note, and sounded just as good live as on the album. When she asked the audience who knew her, not one single person hadn’t heard her music, and it was the two young girls at the fronts first gig. Lucy joked that she wasn’t playing any Christmas songs as she’s doing the BBCs Christmas jingle, and that the gig in Lancaster Library the night before was beautiful. Whilst singing Shiver, one of my favourite songs, the room was silent and her voice was the only sound in the world and reduced the sirens blaring outside to background noise.
She started off nervous but as the gig went on she grew in confidence, announcing to the audience that “I’m feeling really sassy tonight”. She took requests, and performed ‘Bikes’,and a new untitled song, which someone in Lancaster had suggested should be titled ‘Scruffy’, after Lucy’s nickname. Before playing a upbeat song she encouraged us all to scream and make as much noise as we could, and the whole audience began clapping and stamping like a tribal gathering, and the noise was enhanced by the contrast to the evenings quiet and sleepy feel. At the end someone yelled “Go on Lucy!” to which she replied she’d only ever smiled that much twice before and that her top lip had got stuck.
Her last song “before I pretend to leave then come back for a encore”, was a song that she got Danny Dyer to dress up as drag for the music video, which makes for very entertaining YouTube viewing. For the encore, she invited someone up on stage and agreed to sing her favourite song, ‘Gambling’- the two of them should have formed a band. During their ‘pitch perfect’, beautiful performance, I was standing on a creaky floorboard and resisting the urge to move in case I interrupted the peaceful atmosphere, but the applause that raised the roof could have easily drowned out the sound of me drilling up the whole floor. There was a lot of playful banter between Lucy and the northern crowd, and as she grew in confidence and relaxed into the gig, the audience followed.
Lucy and her team spent ages with the audience after the gig, taking photos and beaming with her rather fabulous and charismatic family, but after returning from helping to clear the stage and the equipment, the audience had seemingly melted away and and the room seemed eerily silent after the electric atmosphere half an hour ago- and to me it seemed hugely ironic how funny silence sounds in a library. Although I did slightly debate rugby tackling the band until they agreed to sing ‘Like An Arrow’ for an encore.
Over and out,
MT X
The Museum Teen 