The much-anticipated Sophie Ellis-Bextor performance at the Heineken Big Top was neither disappointing nor dazzling - she gave us what we came for: ‘Murder on the Dancefloor’.
A breezy evening found us passing through checkpoints onto well-trodden grass and a well-organised Galway International Arts Festival venue.
There was an extraordinary age range in the audience, from actual babies to the elderly, and many families in addition to the expected groups of friends.
Kate Nash opened, and while I had not encountered her music before, I wanted to like it. We were at the Big Top; we were dressed up for a good night.
She was clearly working hard to engage the crowd, and did a decent enough job, but there was a distinct sense of waiting for the show to start.
“I’m going to get political,” she shouted into her sparkly microphone, short pink dress fluttering as she ran down the middle of the tent.
Now, there is nothing wrong with overtly political music. But there is a level of artistry necessary to communicate pointed messages without feeling like being stabbed with a pitchfork. Nash did not demonstrate that artistry, though she did have suitably raging visuals.
After the opener, there was an awfully long wait for the bands to change equipment. This broke up any of the buzz Nash had coaxed from the crowd.
Then, finally, Ellis-Bextor came out to sparkly projections on the screen behind the band.
She was charismatic with the crowd, working the dynamic (helped, perhaps, by the drink ) driving a real ‘relationship’ and appealing to Galway’s sense of itself: a fierce, fun city with artistic ambitions.
Ellis-Bextor, and her backing band played her numbers to unapologetically poppy visuals. Most songs were unremarkable; the difficulty with having a hit like hers is that everyone is waiting for The Song.
Her sparkly, silver leotard and gold fringe was only slightly less blinding than the venue lights swooping over us. She played a great cover of ‘Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight )’ by ABBA. That had us properly swaying beneath the tent as the dusk fell.
We were put through our paces: singing (with impressive cohesion from a crowd that size ), dancing, and clapping in time.
Eventually, Sophie gave us what we really, really wanted. ‘Murder on the Dancefloor’ was excellent, as one might hope. Then the band took a bow, she said goodbye, the stage went completely dark, and it would have been a fitting end to the show.
Three minutes later, however, the stage lights turned back on and more music was filtering out of the tent. Her voice called out, telling us that she was ready to work on our relationship a bit more.
But I and a significant portion of the crowd were already well out of the tent and dispersing into town. We were not tempted to return to that cathedral of synth, no matter how enigmatic the preacher.
After all, she had already played The Song.
