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GIG REVIEW
Saturday, 14th August, 2010 The Roxy Theatre, Sunset Boulevard, West Hollywood 
It will no doubt be a daunting prospect for her making her first US solo gig appearance and it’s important for her to realise that the LA crowds are very different to the ones she’s used to in the UK, it’s a Saturday night and the crowd are rowdy and restless from not being aloud into the venue until 20 minutes before she‘s due onstage, let‘s hope she can turn this crowd around and get them onside early on in the performance.
It’s 8:40 and we’re now allowed into the theatre, as the crowd packs into the iconic venue drinks are quickly ordered and everyone begins to settle into their position in the audience, pushing and shoving is going on and by 8:55 everything now seems in order with the crowd.
The lights have now gone down and the announcer’s voice appears over the tanoy system. “Ladies and Gentleman, please welcome, England’s hottest music talent right now, Miss Stacey Walton.”
Average cheers and applause are the response to the announcer and the lights go back up and out walks Stacey Walton with her drummer John Crystal, and her Bass player, Mike Jones. Stacey steps up to centre stage, waves and smiles at the crowd, and grabs the mic “How’s everyone doing tonight, I’m making my US debut tonight and I’m here to create a great rock and roll atmosphere, so drink as much as you can and get wasted because that’s what tonight’s about. Alright here goes, this first song is about fucking. It’s called You Shook Me All Night Long.”
She begins the intro to the iconic rock song and as the first vocal comes up it’s evident that she’s not gonna hit the high ACDC-Esque notes. It’s a more sombre version of the song and throughout it she thrusts her body forward and smiles suggestively to the crowd, the cheer as she moves closer to the edge of the stage and reaches out to the crowd, at the end of the song she winks to an audience member in the front row, she then makes her way back to the microphone stand and finishes the song. She then takes a drink out of bottle of lager and walks over to John Crystal the drummer and it appears that she’s changing the Setlist early on in the performance.
“I’m debuting a couple of songs this evening, And this next song is the title track from my upcoming debut album, it’s called The Sun Always Rises.”
She begins the song with an instrument I haven’t seen for a long time, the maraca has made a return to the world of music tonight and she shakes them four times and throws them to the back of the stage. And begins playing the guitar intro to The Sun Always Rises. She moves her shoulders up and down throughout the performance and blows a kiss to a guy in the front row. She smiles and walks over to the drums, the music stops dead and then with one mighty strike, she smashes the head of her Fender guitar off the cymbals of the drums and begins the music up again with a dramatic shout, THE SUN ALWAYS RISES. With that signals the end of the songs first ever live performance.
“Next up is a song about following your dreams, It’s another new song which has never been played live before, It’s called Don’t Look Back.”
The sound of the pounding drums signals the beginning of the song, Stacey steps to the front of the stage and plays the guitar faultlessly, she grasps the mic stand and lifts it into the air before bringing it back down. She takes the microphone out of the stand. She steps right to the edge of the stage and screams, Forget The Courage That You Lack/Follow Your Dreams/And Baby Don’t Look Back. She puts the mic back onto the stand and hands her Fender guitar back to the guitar tech at the side of the stage.
She steps up to the microphone and begins talking to the audience, “How’s everyone doing tonight, It’s been a crazy couple of weeks for me, It’s my first time in California and it’s been amazing but sadly I’ve got to leave tomorrow to get back to London, so I want some lasting memories from tonight, So here’s what I want to do.” She stops talking and looks around for a couple of seconds, she takes a couple of steps back before running forward and leaping into the audience, It’s something we don’t see as much these days but she’s brought it back for tonight as she’s crowd surfing. She ends up crowd surfing for almost 2 minutes before making her way back to the stage.
As she gets back on the stage she grabs the microphone, “That was fucking incredible. Alright back to performing. This one‘s called Remember Winter.”
She takes an acoustic guitar for this one and it’s just her alone without her backing band. It’s a more intimate song which is evident by the reaction of the crowds to take there phones and lighters and raise them in the air, it’s an age old cliché but it makes for a good atmosphere, She smiles once during the song and she’s clearly emotional when singing this song, It’s quite a difference compared to her other songs. As the song finishes she acknowledges the crowds reaction, “Thanks guys, you’ve been amazing tonight.”
She leaves the stage for a moment and returns as the applauds sound.
“Alright, this next song is called English Girls Are Easy.”
She doesn’t play guitar on the final two songs, performing on piano with the two most popular songs of hers, English Girls Are Easy and A Tender Kiss. It appears that she’s also a very talented piano player which is something I don‘t think people are aware of, she‘s clearly a talented individual. She provides the crowd with a bit of comedy as the song is more light hearted.
Next up is a Tender Kiss which gets a huge reaction from the crowd, It’s performed immaculately on piano and it become a more beautiful song on the piano compared to the single which was performed with a guitar, the guitar has a more rock thrust to it but the piano version turns it into a more softer song with the beautiful piano playing, it’s not too fast but it’s not too slow, it’s perfection. The song draws to a close and the crowd seem mesmerized by what they’ve seen tonight, as she stands from the piano the crowd give her a huge standing ovation and applaud for over 2 minutes, she stands with her backing band at centre stage and nods her head, smiles, winks and waves, she even steps forward to touch the enthusiastic fans in the front row.
An incredible debut US performance for the Londoner and she has a bright future ahead of her.SetlistYou Shook Me All Night Long (AC/DC Cover)
The Sun Always Rises
Don’t Look Back
Remember Winter
English Girls Are Easy
A Tender KissOOC: Sorry about it being a bit short, it was kinda rushed. Edited by user 17 August 2010 05:11:29(UTC)
| Reason: Not specified |
