Two years on from her last visit, Basia Bulat returned to Leeds touring her new album Good Advice. On Record Store Day no less (16th April). Yet another good beer venue - this time she played Headrow House. Good Advice is a bigger sounding album, in many ways, than Tall Tall Shadow, so understandably Basia wanted to tour it with a band. The efficient option, as it transpired, was to have her support band as her backing band.
The Weather Station (trio led by Tamara Lindeman) played a 30 minute set to a small and rather chilly audience (maybe Headrow House had forgotten the heating....). The Weather Station has a big-open-space instrumental sound (I definitely heard the soundscapes reminding me of looking at Ontario's landscape from the train); whilst Tamara seems to be a pretty respected songsmith, 30 minutes was too short a time to get into her lyrics. They were, however, much more engaging than the support from 2014.
Basia and backing musicians played a shorter set than in her 2014 trip. Whilst the musicianship was all excellent, with a good vibe (plenty of laughing and joking between songs) we felt that the balance was a bit off-kilter: Basia's vocals seemed a bit swamped by the instrument set-up. Maybe it was calculated for a larger space than Headrow House - I wonder if it feels odd or weird to go from playing sell-out halls in Canada (such as Toronto's Massey Hall) to playing for 100 people?
In possession of a spangly gold cape (containing her magic powers!) Basia and co started with a selection of big-sounding songs: Let Me In, Long Goodbye, La La Lie, Heart Of My Own, Five/Four.
The second section of the set was my favourite: Basia along with her autoharp. The treats in store were: Paris or Amsterdam, Gold Rush, In The Night. In comparison to the foot-stomping album version of Gold Rush, the solo autoharp rendition was amazing - I was almost in tears. None on this evening, but apparently In The Night had been the impetus for the only mosh pit so far a a Basia Bulat gig....
Rounding off the evening we heard Good Advice, Wires, Someday Soon and Infamous. No encore - but having heard a few quips about the excellence of the NHS, there were a few illnesses and injuries.
A pretty fun evening, but for all the magic capes, this show didn't have the spellbinding-ness of Basia's 2014 solo show.
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