Singer songwriters can be a dour old bunch. It’s all heartbreak and earache on the acoustic stages of venues around the world night after night. There are too many checked shirts, serious faces, and bearded troubadours singing about breakups and booze. Don’t get me wrong, that’s the kind of thing we love here but every now and again a change is as good as a rest and we’re spending Saturday night in a bit of a party mood with a feisty young female singer, decked out in tattoos and beanie hat singing about… well, she sings about breakups and booze as well.
Lucy Spraggan is best known in the UK and Ireland for her brief appearance on 2012’s X Factor competition where she became an overnight success mixing folk, pop, rap, hip hop and original tunes before being forced to leave the show due to ongoing illness.
Tonight, she’s back in Belfast for her second ever show. It’s her first full gig here after a short set in The Kremlin last year, it’s been moved to a bigger venue and adoring fans have been queued for hours, waiting, waiting, singing and screaming. This is all a bit more ‘pop’ than we’re used to but as she takes the stage to a almost jazzy riff accompanied by upright bass and drums we get the feeling this might just be alright.
There are elements of hip hop, folk, jazz and blues on the menu tonight. She tells tales of failed American romance, of pissing off blues aficionados in Sheffield and gets a hugely enthusiastic singalong of ‘Tea and Toast’. Witty, charming, decent singing voice and able to drop beats and bust rhymes for the likes of ‘Gold Digger’ and ‘Drop It Like It’s Hot’, it’s a great prelude to a Saturday night on the town. Lucy’s new single ‘Lighthouse’ is out today and we’ll be giving it a listen for sure.
It may not be serious folk but it’s been serious fun.