Anna Calvi has no angle. She’s not a Brit School brat, she isn’t pioneering an exciting new genre, and she’s not the UK’s answer to anybody. Psssh. She probably doesn’t even know Mark Ronson.
Unlike pretty much everyone else on this year’s BBC Sound Of… long list, the 28-year-old’s reputation does not precede her. Her material may be too heavy for flighty scenesters and too sinister to fulfill the needs of your average pop fan, but this is actually rather good news for the enigmatic Londoner. It’s almost impossible to banish Calvi to a particular niche, so critics and musos alike are more likely to focus on her live chops – an area in which she shows astounding aptitude and remarkable ingenuity.
Her set kicks off in precisely the same way as her eponymous debut, with the swooping, Hendrix-y guitar licks of ‘Rider To The Sea’. Calvi doesn’t strum per se, but rather feels around her Telecaster in a circular motion, racing her fingers up and down the fret board, all without dislodging a hair. She segues into rippling love song ‘No More Words’ and unleashes her other weapon – a rich, billowing falsetto that evokes a classically-trained Contralto and cold-hearted torch singer in equal parts.
She’s joined on stage by Daniel Maiden-Wood on drums and Mally Harpaz on everything else (seriously… harmonium, bass pedal, backing vocals, xylophone, cymbals, rattles, shakers – the woman’s doing the job of half a dozen musicians!) and the stormy lullabies don’t let up for 60 heaving, thundering minutes.
The word “devil” is dropped 47 times tonight (that’s actually a very rough estimate, but bet you a nickel I’m not far wrong), so just in case Calvi’s steely gaze and Robert Palmer band looks didn’t tip us off, it’s clear she’s a bit of a dark soul. As well as howling anthem ‘Desire’ and plundering signature tune ‘Breakout’, we’re treated to two covers, Elvis Presley’s ‘Surrender’ (what? No ‘Devil In Disguise’?) and Edith Piaf’s ‘Jezebel’. Presley’s swivel-hips are nowhere to be seen, but Calvi’s clearly been studying Piaf’s phrasing, timing and stoic stage presence.
As the show comes to a suitably intense climax, our smouldering frontwoman makes an awkward attempt to exit the stage, before giving in and rushing bashfully back to her microphone.
“Can we just pretend that you gave me an encore?” she giggles, breaking character for a moment. She really needn’t have bothered. With a performance like that, she could have kept us hollering.