Soak & Susie Blue, live at The Little Museum

Essentially a sparse Georgian drawing-room – Soak herself has helped remove the artwork for the performances – it means she can wrap things up by plonking herself on the floor and covering Bonnie Raitt’s ‘I Can’t Make You Love Me’ amplification-free without anyone straining to hear. Not only does the 16-year-old Derry singer have a unique voice, it’s also a fiercely defiant one. The similarly preternaturally-talented Susie Blue plays support and is a real prize package, each song suggesting she’s been heavily influenced by Sixpence None The Richer’s ‘Kiss Me’, despite the fact she was probably born the year it came out. And then, Soak arrives, using Villagers’ ‘The Meaning Of A Ritual’ as Rockyesque entrance music. She’s been told not to play new songs. She plays them anyway, and they suggest her writing is on the right trajectory (she’s now knocking stripes off the stuff she wrote at 13). She plays her biggest song ‘Seamonsters’ but confesses that she finds it “annoying”. She doesn’t spare her mother’s blushes when detailing how her finest tune ‘Blood’ is about hearing her parents argue over the broken washing machine. Her mother hates it but then, “sucks to be you, because it’s gonna be on the radio soon!” The understandably juvenile touches generally serve to win you over all the more, but it does mean that she’s a long way off perfect. Her between-song musings are entertaining in small doses but a little less conversation would be welcome. She realises it herself, telling us to let her know when to shut up. No-one does. Right now the fact she’s striking her own path, and occasionally stumbling, just confirms her singular potential. With the talent on display, there’s no doubting that we’ll be with her every misstep of the way.