Joanna Newsom at the Albert Hall

In two words....

Absolutely Amazing!!


This was the best gigs I have ever been too, and the Albert Hall is great venue. The only one that comes close was Lamb's penultimate ever performance which was at the Shepard's Bush Empire.

Firstly the place was sold out (that's a capacity of 5,500) and all the songs were slightly reworked from the Album so they seemed fresh and had a 3 piece band not the full orchestra which is recorded on 'Ys', and on the album you can't appreciate the skill. One of the songs 'Only Skin' is 18 minutes long. She has written the lyrics for all her songs and they are not repetitive but more like poetry, then she's set them to music which she then plays, playing the harp is quite an intense activity, and then singing without sounding out of breath is some feat. One of the songs in the middle of her set 'Sawdust and Diamonds' got a standing ovation at the end.

Also she seemed to be as amazed at playing in the Albert Hall as the audience was to see her. One song she had the one of the support acts sing the backing vocals and at the end asked them to go get her phone and then had the House Lights raised so she could photograph the hall and audience.
She started off with 'Bridges and Balloons' and followed by 'Emily' which are my favourite songs which is cool.
'Only Skin' was the encore song which she preformed after a 5minute standing ovation and at one point she got lost on the lyrics, which most performers would be criticised for but instead it got a laugh from the audience and a prompt from the percussionist she was off again. If you find the lyrics you will know why.