Review of Clare Maguire at The Sugar Club – April 10th 2011
Review: Joey Kavanagh
Snaps by Aidan McCarthy
Being featured on tastemakers’ ‘Next Big Thing’ lists can be something of a double-edged sword. On the one hand, it grants new acts valuable exposure and ensures that, when the chosen few do release material, people sit up and listen. On the other hand, it often sets expectations for these artists unrealistically high and pits acts, making very different music, against each other unfairly.
23-year-old Clare Maguire featured in a clutch of Tips for 2011 lists but, when she released her debut album was released in February, some critics got the knives out and concluded that the record had fallen some way short of the standard that they had set for it. This ‘backlash’ doesn’t seem to have dampened Maguire’s spirits though, or at least there’s no sign that it has as she bounds on to the stage tonight in The Sugar Club.
Clad in a slinky black gúna and silver stilettos, she gets proceedings underway with the broody Ain’t Nobody, wisely drawing from the dub-inflected Breakage remix to add some extra oomph. Her singular voice has earned comparisons to Annie Lennox and Stevie Nicks and tonight we find her in full voice. Forceful and rich on the low notes and surprisingly sweet in the upper register, she reminds this reviewer more of the almighty Florence Welch than any of the other big-voiced belters.
An excitable performer, Maguire copes admirably with the awkward layout of The Sugar Club that means her audience tonight is mostly seated, refusing to let the energy flag. For current single The Shield and The Sword, she prowls around the stage, feeding energy off her band and backing singers, who vaguely resemble the cast of Pulp Fiction tonight.
Maguire has limited material to draw from for her hour-long set but the sequence is well judged and, just a few songs in, sections of the audience are up and dancing in the aisles. One of the highlights of tonight comes when she slows things down for Bullet, a track that bears a passing resemblance to Sinead O’ Connor’s take on Nothing Compares 2 U.
She then dedicates an emotional rendition This Is Not The End to her Irish grandparents, explaining that to play her first headline gig in the country of her heritage marks a particularly special moment for her and her family. For swansong The Happiest Pretenders, Maguire does laps of The Sugar Club, occasionally stopping to sip on a pint of Guinness or pose for photos.
Moments later, Maguire returns to the stage for an encore, which included a bluesy Rosetta Tharpe cover and a feisty new song called Messed You Around. She rounds off the night with her biggest song to date, The Last Dance, which prompts a stage invasion.
Ten minutes later, as I’m leaving the venue, Clare Maguire is still swarmed by fans on the stage, as she happily poses for photos and signs autographs. Any fairweather fans here tonight have likely been converted to fully-fledged fanatics. Even if the material on her debut album isn’t to everyone’s taste, I have strong suspicions that Clare Maguire’s outstanding talent and likeability will ultimately prevail.
