Yvette Young
– GULLIVERS, MANCHESTER –
It feels like a 60’s love-in in the back room at Gullivers tonight, the majority of the crowd have taken to sitting on the floor of the intimate but packed space front of stage waiting for Yvette to start her set. It’s a friendly atmosphere and everyone is comfortable and ready to fall in love with Yvette’s music. There are no support acts and so we get to dive straight in, with Yvette coming through the crowd with her guitar to the lone chair and starting with an amazing cover of Wild Nothing’s ‘Only Heather’. Pictures were taken by the crowd and by Yvette who enjoyed the audiences approach at seating arrangements; It’s good to see that she is enjoying the tour.
Yvette shows us her technical mastery of the guitar throughout the set with choppy and intricate math style shapes and riffs, and by completing several tuning changes without breaking a string, which she tells us she is quite worried about as it happened in her show in Dublin cutting one of her songs short and prompting her to blurt quite a loud ‘FUCK!’ I can see this as being quite a shock to the attendees of that show as it’s hard not to get captivated by the graceful fingerpicking style used by Yvette and and not to get hypnotised by her serene voice as it flows over the complex rhythms and melodies tapped away in each intriguing composition. We are definitely hanging on every note as they swiftly float by here tonight. It is amazing how well Yvette’s voice holds up as she apologises for being a bit ill, managing to hold back a small cough through to the end of each song and having the ability to sound impeccable while doing so.
The show finishes with ‘A Map A String A Light Pt 1 and 2’ from her Acoustics EP and it’s played perfectly, a wonderful way to close. At just over half an hour it hasn’t been a long time for the show, but feels like time well spent. The majority of the songs played tonight are new, being finished just prior to coming on tour. They sound a little raw and rough compared to the more established latter portion of the set but it feels great to know we are some of the first people to witness them. I will certainly be looking forward to the new acoustic album that should be appearing soon.
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