Sophie Ellis-Bextor - Waterfront
Lovely night, lovely lady, lovely purple eye shadow.
Sophie Ellis-Bextor can work a goddamn room.
When she first came on stage, playing the opening two tracks from her current album in quick succession, I thought it was going to be one of those gigs with very little interaction. I couldn’t have been more wrong.
Supported on stage by her hubby (The Feelings’ Richard Jones) on bass, and album co-writer and family friend Ed Harcourt on keyboard, Ellis-Bextor got the whole room dancing like we didn’t have work in the morning. There’s something about her relentless energy (she barely stood still for her hour-and-a-half long set) and the fact she seems to love what she does which makes you love it to.
We learnt a lot about Sophie as she chatted away happily: “I wear the same dress every night, but I change my eye shadow. Tonight’s purple.” We also learnt that if you stand near the front you probably shouldn’t wear a Heinz Ketchup t-shirt – its Sophie’s favourite condiment, and you’ll make her think about food.
It was a set of two halves. The first consisted of ‘Wanderlust’ in full, with one of Ed’s songs and a fairly smashing Pulp cover (‘Do You Remember The First Time?’) thrown in for good measure. A quick dress change and Sophie was back with some of her older material, building to disco favourite ‘Murder on the Dance Floor’.
Moments later Sophie appeared in the merch stand to end the gig with a final acoustic number.
Lovely night, lovely lady, lovely purple eye shadow.
