Lindi Ortega: Live At The Roisin Dubh

A cold, miserable and showery January night in storm-battered Galway city, and the Roisin Dubh is half empty as ukulele-wielding singer-songwriter
Tracy Bruen attempts to warm the place up with her indie-tinged repertoire of folk, country and blues originals, ably backed on fiddle by Stephanie Swanton.

She’s definitely got a voice to reckon with, and the audience sure is appreciative, but these songs just aren’t quite stomping enough to enliven the rain-sodden audience.

That’s Lindi Ortega’s job. The moment the beautiful Canadian steps onto the stage in her bright red cowboy boots – perfectly colour coordinated with trademark radioactive lipstick – the room suddenly feels more like it’s half-full.
Wearing a teasingly short black dress and net veil, she looks more like a goth widow than the country star widely touted as the next Dolly or Emmylou.
Although her debut album was released in 2001, it was a well-reviewed stint as Brandon Flowers’ backing singer on The Killers frontman’s 2010/11 solo tour that brought her to wider attention. She hasn’t forgotten her hand-to-mouth days as a struggling artist in Tennessee: opening with the title-track of her 2013 album, Tin Star, ahe explains that it’s about “being an underdog in the music business” and “dealing with Nashville losers.” While her passport is Canadian, Ortega is actually of Mexican and Irish descent: she proves the latter by loudly swearing “Shite!” when a string breaks. She’s cute as hell and knows it, but also has a wicked sense of humour.

She picks up a guitar, announcing with a flirty grin that it’s time to get out her “sexy black beast.” The song is titled ‘Hard As This’, but she protests, “It’s not dirty... I swear!” A playful number about the joys of marijuana smoking is introduced thus: “This song is called ‘High’ – but not the ‘hello’ hi!”She’s backed throughout by guitar maestro ‘Champagne’ James Robertson, a truly superb player who somehow manages to create a full band sound using just six strings, the palm of his hand and a range of effects pedals.

There’s a collective laugh when he effortlessly delivers yet another superbly skilful solo and Ortega quips, “I taught him everything he knows.” Her fast-paced set – which alternates between alt-country and old school rock ‘n’ roll – is mostly
drawn from Tin Star and its predecessors, Little Red Boots and Cigarettes & Truckstops, though she also demonstrates the sheer versatility of her vocal range with crackling covers of The Eagles’ ‘Desperado’ and Johnny Cash’s ‘Ring Of Fire’.
Gorgeous, talented, witty and likeable, Lindi Ortega seems to have the whole country superstar package. In a year or two, she could well be selling out arenas.