Review: Joey Kavanagh
Photographs: Abraham Tarrush
When I arrive at The Academy in good time ahead of Diana Vickers’s debut Irish headliner, I find the venue is already almost full. Up the front, I spy a particularly excitable mob, pressed against the stage and clad in matching white t-shirts.
I’m later informed by another concert-goer that these ‘Vickerettes’ have been to all six dates on the current tour. Although former X Factor contestant Diana has certainly enjoyed a higher profile than many of those that went on to win the contest, I still find it a little hard to believe that she has reached a level of success that merits such diehard followers.
In any case, The Vickerettes and I must first see what the support act, 18-year-old London singer-songwriter Spark, has to offer. By virtue of being a white female pop artist with a vaguely Cockney accent, Spark will inevitably suffer comparisons to Kate Nash and Lily Allen. In reality though, her music bears more of a similarity to that of more leftfield pop acts like The Good Natured and Theoretical Girl.
Opening with her current single Revolving, Spark delivers a measured set of pop gems and succeeds in winning over some new followers. It would come as little surprise to see her grace the inevitable Tips for 2011 in the coming months.
After a brief wait, Ms Vickers takes to the stage and launches into her set with ‘Remake Me & You’, from her awkwardly titled debut album Songs From The Tainted Cherry Tree.
Diana’s wispy voice and eccentric charms earned her some detractors during her run on X Factor and her ‘marmite’ appeal manifested itself once again in the polarised reviews of her album. Granted, she may not be to everyone’s taste, but there’s little doubt that the girl can sing and, judging by the emphatic reception she receives tonight, there’s certainly an audience for her music.
With just one album under her belt, the nineteen-year-old doesn’t have all that much material to draw from but, promisingly, even the lesser known tracks hold their own. She fleshes out the set with a cover of Snow Patrol’s ‘Just Say Yes’ (a track she says was originally supposed to appear on her album before the band decided to release it themselves) and delivers bouts of self-deprecating humour in a thick Lancashire accent between numbers.
Diana performs an impressive trumpet solo for ‘My Hip’ and gets the diehards riled up by debuting a new song, ‘More Than This’, which she tells us will feature on her sophomore release next year. The biggest cheers of the night though are reserved for recent single ‘My Wicked Heart’ and big closer ‘Once’.
There’s something very genuine about her performance tonight; a sense that she, and not some Cowell-esque label boss, is calling the shots. Viewers of The X Factor will no doubt be accustomed to ejected contestants proclaiming “this isn’t the last you’ve heard for me” and Diana’s success serves as proof that this isn’t always misplaced optimism.
And while I may not be quite ready to become a paid-up member of the Vickerettes, I’ve certainly enjoyed her performance a lot more than I expected to.
