Imelda May came onto the stage at St Mary’s on Sunday, August 28 to rapturous applause. The audience was full of her fans, some of whom had travelled a long way to be there.
Imelda explained that the concert was to be an intimate one so she had “ditched” her drummer. She engaged straight away with everyone and captivated them with her wonderful lilting Irish accent, so soft and gentle and alluring.
Her first song was 11 past the hour. She told the audience how it had come about: “When I was writing this album, I kept on seeing 11, 11 everywhere, clocks, dates, signs, it kept on popping up. I looked into the significance of this; I am a curious cow, I need to look into everything, I dig deep, I need to know why, where, how and when. Apparently, it is an invitation to the universe to open up and discover and check things.
“I took it upon me to write that challenge, write that invitation and I was only thinking today so much of my life has changed from one really small incident that I had. I rescued a crow in a local park, and I took it home and cared for it. He used to sit on my shoulder. It was through him that I started to work with Jeff Beck. I met him with his wife who had an aviary and she offered to take him to release him back into the wild. Jeff and I sat drinking brandy and started playing Somewhere there is heaven. We ended up touring all over the world. It was because of that moment with this crow. It’s all about those little moment, paying attention to what the world and the universe is showing you.”
Her work is raw and truthful and simple in a way and draws you in. The audience listened intently, and you could hear only her plaintive notes echoing around the church. Imelda introduced each song with a snippet of her life or her feelings.
“Here we are in Rye in the most magical, mystical and spiritual place. I feel it’s very spiritual here, I really do, I feel it in the ground.”
She ended the concert by reading a poem from the pulpit with music specially written to accompany it, What is love you ask. It was the perfect end to the perfect concert. But being Imelda, she gave us two more songs and had everyone standing up and clapping. All the emotions were touched and people left feeling that they wanted more.
Image Credits: Kt bruce .