(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)
1 June
So, here is my attempt to sum up the experience of The Big Top at Cheltenham Jazz Festival, with Gabby Young and Other Animals...
Compared with other days in that venue, when the acts were not compelling (although, literally, Lianne La Havas did let the position go to her head a little, with everyone on their feet and supposed to do something because she required it), this was warm – and one felt for whether Gabby must have been too hot in her flouncy, cotton-wool skirt. As she said, she had always dreamed of playing at the festival, and she had clearly been inspired with her appearance by the feeling of carnival (and striped awnings and lollipops even feature in one of their videos).
The early numbers were much jazzier than as the set progressed, but at least Ms Young did establish some jazz credentials by swinging along to a few tunes (and even scatting a little), before turning a bit lighter and more folky, unlike others whom I heard in that tent.
That said, some songs were of a distinctly ‘psychological’ flavour, as even the title ‘In Your Head’ suggests, let alone lyrics such as ‘Don’t worry – they won’t get you !’ and ‘The paranoia had taken over’. For a good impression of what that was like, although it is a more free and less straight version, take a look at main man Steve Ellis and her in this Tweet*, which is a link to recordings made for Henry Weston’s Cider :
Some day I might write something about Gabby Young at #cheltjazzfest... In the meantime, here's a backstage session : youtube.com/watch?v=WCKN2i…
— THE AGENT APSLEY (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) May 31, 2013
‘We’re All in This Together’ is a less cheery tale (depending on how it is performed, despite the lyrics ‘And I won’t get alive – and they’ll call you up and tell you I won’t survive’), and there is an uneasy quality to music and words of ‘Ones That Got Away’, whose YouTube studio version is quite lively. However, do not get me wrong that there is not plenty of sassy playing with eight or more Other Animals on stage – it may be simply that Ms Young held back a bit on jazz singing as such during the gig, and her classically trained voice came more to the fore.
If one could wrap up ‘a message’ of the show, it was that things maybe are not as bad as they feel (that paranoia may be manageable, and, even if one has fallen down a tunnel, there may be good things at the bottom), and perhaps best done with another song, ‘Male Version of me’, which ends, a little disbelievingly, with the words ‘Perfect for me’.
In every good sense, Gabby Young is and has the true and unselfish energy of a real entertainer, and her talented Animals and she will surely go on to please others wherever they are heard.
And here is a review of the band at Bristol Harbour Festival...
End-notes
* The one on the official web site, www.gabbyyoungandotheranimals.com has that stripy, Yellow Submarine sort of atmosphere.
If you want to Tweet, Tweet away here
