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Stacey Walton
The new girl on the scene shows Q how she does it live
Q The Music Club, Live at Hard Rock Café, London
Tuesday, 13 July 2010 **** 4/5 Kurt Cobain once said “I use bits and pieces of others personalities to form my own”. That quote is quite appropriate for Stacey Walton who is clearly inspired and influenced by other people in music but she still manages to be herself.
Backstage Pre-Show
Tonight backstage Stacey is waiting in an incredibly small dressing room, She’s sitting in a chair in the corner of the room with headphones in her ears looking very nervous, as I walk in she takes the headphones out and welcome’s me with a smile, I ask her how she’s feeling, “Honestly, I’m shit scared, I’ve played a few gigs over the last couple of years but every time I’m waiting to go on I always feel the same, I kind of thought that the nerves would just go away naturally over time but they don’t. It’s fine when I get out there but it’s the waiting to go on which almost kills me.”
Stacey stands up and explains that she needs to go outside for a quick smoke, as she leaves the room she takes her bottle of lager and makes her way outside. We begin chatting about tonight.
“Q have been amazing for me, They did an article with me about my debut album and now they’ve gave me the chance to perform for the Q Music Club which is great. I’m still unsigned so to have this kind of interest in me is great.”
Three minutes later and she’s finished her cigarette and we make our way back inside, I wish her the best and leave for the audience area.
Performance
I arrive in the audience just in time, “Ladies & Gentleman please welcome Stacey Walton”, that announcement was met with moderate cheers, she’s still pretty unknown.
She steps up to the mic, looking nervous, At this point I’m kind of nervous for her, “How’s everyone doing tonight”, which is met with louder cheers. “I’m gonna play a couple of songs for you tonight.”
And so she begun, She began with the very recognisable intro to The Clash’s London Calling which she appears to have taken as her opening song. It’s a song which has been covered a lot in the past and is often overplayed but Stacey has managed to give this song some much needed new energy, her female vocals work well with the songs angry lyrics. The crowd sing along with every word of the song and when people say punk is dead, seeing this opening song, in my opinion it is very much alive and kicking.
She finishes the song by smashing the head of her guitar off the drums cymbals.
She steps back up to the mic and begins the intro to her own song Don’t Be Gentle, unexpectedly she has changed some of the lyrics for tonight’s gig, the song is generally about people seeing girls as soft and cuddly, her changed lyrics tonight turn into a song about sex, I think it’s fair to say this won’t be the version which appears on her album. Although it is a pretty creative lyrics change and she deserves credit for it. She’s an attractive girl and there’s much appreciative grunting from some of the young males in the first row. Halfway through the song she stops to blow kisses at the front row. As the song draws to a close she walks to the edge of the stage and reaches out her hand for the crowd to touch. Cheers go all around the venue.
Next up is another of her own songs called Where Do You Go When Your On Your Own, it’s a slower song with punk rock elements to it, very much similar to Here Comes A Regular, a song I later find out is one of her favourites. “This song is about a lot of things I felt when I was growing up. I hope you like it.” Like I say it’s a slower song which focuses more on the lyrics, “Where do you go when your upset/where do you go when your lonely/where do you go when your on your own.” The song ends and she steps away from the mic and takes a sip from her bottle of lager at the side of the stage. As she steps back up at the mic she begins to talk to the audience, “You guys have been great tonight, I’ve got a couple more songs for you and I hope you like em.”
Next up is the song which is set to be released as her debut single at the end of the month, A Tender Kiss “I don’t write no love songs/I don’t like this feeling/I know it’s hard to resist/I know you think I’m easy/but you can have a tender kiss.” She smiles throughout the song and it’s evident that this is one of her most biographical songs. She continues smiling and waving at the crowd. She switches from an electric guitar to an acoustic for her rendition of The Beatles - Don’t Let Me Down.
“I know people see me as a punk rocker but you’ve got have some pop music in your life.” She starts performing The Beatles song Don’t Let Me Down. During the lyrics “Ooh, she done me/She done me good.” She thrusts her body forward and slides her hands down from her hair to the side of her hips, again the front row of young male’s cheer, She then leads into another Beatles song with All You Need Is Love. She finishes the medley and she shouts “thank you.” before leaving the stage, the crowds cheers get louder and about half a minute later she returns for two more songs.
“Thank so much for a great night, I’ve got two more songs for you tonight.”
She begins the intro to Teenage Lobotomy by The Ramones, and halfway through gets the fans to clap along, She smiles as the claps start and the fans are enjoying a woman with an amazing future ahead of her, don’t let the amount of covers put you off because her own songs are just as good as the covers.
And the final song of the night is her own Rip Up The Rulebook, it’s a song about being excessive, taking drugs and drinking heavily (Something she can relate to) but not dying, it’s kind of like the flipside of The Who’s lyric “I hope I die before I get old.” In Rip Up The Rulebook, it tells the story of a person who has taken a crazy amount of drugs in the past and has been on the verge of death for most of their life but they continued to live.
She finishes the song and waves to the crowd and leaves the stage and heads back to her dressing room.
Backstage - Post-Show
I knock on her dressing room door and she shouts come in. I enter the room and she smiles, “See there was nothing to worry about, you were amazing tonight.” I reassure her.
“Thanks man, I really enjoyed it. That’s pretty much the reason why I want to be doing this for the rest of my life, nothing can replace the buzz of playing live.”
We begin talking about her choice of Setlist and her inclusion of many covers, “Well you know not that many people would have heard any of my own songs, I think it’s good to put covers in the Setlist so the crowd have music which their familiar with, My own songs go down really well with crowds but until I’ve got an album out or a couple of singles out then I’m gonna continue with the covers, when people become more familiar with my music then I’ll probably start to play less and less covers.”
I ask her what’s her favourite song to perform live, “It’s actually a song I rarely perform live because to me it’s very relative to myself. It’s called Here Comes A Regular by The Replacements, I always get kinda emotional when I listen to that song and when I play that song. I don’t like being so vulnerable when I’m playing songs, I don’t want the crowd to see me, sort of teary eyed and on the verge of bursting into tears. I do like to put emotion into my live shows but not to the point where it will become uncomfortable for the crowd, you know.”
She’s clearly delighted with how the show went and she has to slowly get back down to normal levels of energy, She sits quietly for a minute or so just to calm down a bit and then she stands up and grabs her things and makes her way over to the owner of the venue’s room, she knocks on the door, he opens the door and Stacey smiles and says “Thanks for setting this gig up for me, It’s really appreciated.” he smiles and says it’s not a problem and she leaves the venue and heads outside, I walk out with her and as we leave the venue and make our way onto the busy street, she lights up a cigarette and we both go in opposite directions.
As I said before, people say punk is dead and buried, but tonight I saw it and it was back with a vengeance.SetlistLondon Calling (The Clash Cover)
Don’t Be Gentle
Where Do You Go When Your On Your Own
A Tender Kiss
Don’t Let Me Down/All You Need Is Love (The Beatles Medley)
Teenage Lobotomy (The Ramones Cover)
Rip Up The RulebookOOC: I put quite a bit of effort into this roleplay. I’ve never been good at judging myself so let me know if it’s any good or anything I can work on. Edited by user 15 July 2010 07:03:39(UTC)
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