Floral Pavilion, New Brighton – 23/09/2019
Entering a packed Floral Pavilion, there was a hub of excitement waiting for Lulu to begin her set. Supported by Philippa Hanna, who is definitely worth looking up. Her high energy, acoustic, feel good music – the perfect warm up for a night with Lulu. Check out Philippa’s version of Ed Sheeran’s ‘Perfect’, so deep and powerful and actually a really beautiful version. Whilst you’re there, check out ‘Off the Wagon’ too – the song she opened with. A great song that you can’t help but sing along to. Philippa did a great job of getting the crowd ready and by the time she finished, we were all well and truly warmed up and ready for Lulu.
After a quick break, everyone gathered back in the theatre and after a video introduction comes the unmistakable and amazingly good vocals of Lulu and the opening ‘weeellll’ of Shout. That was it, the crowd erupted as Lulu ran onto the stage and sang her signature tune. I was a little surprised that she opted to open with ‘Shout’, but this show was a chronological history. And it was her first song. So, it was obvious I suppose!
After Shout, Lulu began telling the story about being signed and meeting Mickey Most and him pushing her to do all these songs, which she hated! They weren’t edgy or cool, but my god, wasn’t she glad she listened to him, because she just got hit after hit. It was a real personal story telling and it felt like she was talking directly to me. She launched into ‘The Boat That I Row’ followed by ‘To Sir With Love’ and of course, there was a story behind that too.
Then she touched on her marriage with Maurice Gibb and played a video of her and Maurice singing ‘First of May’ which she duetted with herself and Maurice at the end. It was such an emotional moment and she was visibly moved watching the film. Then she went onto tell the story of her sitting in on various Bee Gees recording sessions and she launched into ‘Run to Me’ mid way through the story. It felt as though I was in her living room and she was speaking to me. Just me. It was great. Then she sang ‘To Love Somebody’, which brought the Bee Gees section to a close.
Moving on through the decades, and Lulu had to keep checking where she was chronologically, which I thought was hilarious, she couldn’t stress enough how blessed she was as her story got more incredible and amazing. And then she goes on to say how she met a guy who ‘was cooler than cool, beyond edgy, always pushing the envelope towards the dark and mysterious.’ She was talking about David Bowie, she then sang and excellent rendition of ‘The Man Who Sold The World’. This sounded better than the original recording. Lulu’s voice is just perfect.
Bringing the first half to a close with ‘Teardrops’, the energy onstage was matched equally by the energy in the audience. Audience and band were feeding off of each other. It was great. Energetic and fast paced. Lulu was on fire and there was a crowd gathered dancing and singing along at the foot of the stage. The energy and performance is the kind you would expect of someone in their thirties. Not someone over twice that age! She is incredible. And vocally right on point.
The second half began with ‘Independence’, from Lulu’s 1993 album of the same name. We are well and truly in the nineties, you can tell, the instrumentation just felt dance-pop! What a song though and Lulu again, great vocals and yet again amazing energy.
The stories kept coming, next was how she wanted to get back into the music business after being away for a few years and her brother Billy said she had to write her own songs. And so she did. Cue two original songs, released a few years ago. The first ‘Where the poor boys dance’ was a really nice touching song straight from the heart. Following that came a fantastic rock and roll moment and personal show highlight for me. The song ‘Poison Kiss’ was fantastic. This is Lulu completely letting go and completely feeling the music. The song reminded me a little of early Faces tracks. It was raw, blues led rock and roll. And I loved it.
Bringing the show to a close, she played us out with a cover of Elton John’s ‘I’m Still Standing’, never a truer statement could be said about Lulu. She is still standing and better than ever. Her voice is incredible; I think it’s even got better with age and how she has the energy to put such an energetic show on, I will never know. She could out perform and out sing any of these so called pop princesses today! What an incredible show and Lulu is pure class! Lulu is someone everyone should see and I guarantee you will be singing all the way through. What a fantastic night.
