It had better a be a good review, I was warned, by bassist Holly Mullineaux, after the gig. Well, of course, I stammered…
I mean, it was always going to be, once Ms. Zajac and her band stepped on stage. Having grown up in Edinburgh, this was something of a homecoming gig for her. Right down to the fact that she points out her Dad in the middle of the floor modelling the Bang t-shirt commemorating her awesome debut album released just a couple of days before. This doesn’t come off as naff, rather someone who is totally at ease with herself and, having released what may be the debut album of the year, so she should be.
It’s an intimate but decent venue, for those of you who haven’t been, and I don’t know how much longer she’ll be headlining in places where you can see the whites of her eyes. The gig starts, as does the album, with the slow burning ‘Bowls.’ The mournful, solo drum could be that of a funeral march, or that of us being summoned to pay attention. It works, it’s hypnotic and atmospheric. It’s great not to be grinding what’s left of my teeth at people who won’t stop talking, because she holds us rapt. She’s been gradually releasing these songs over the course of the year, and each time the anticipation for the album just got that bit higher.
For me, the highlight of the album is ‘End Of The Year‘ which she tells us she wrote about growing up in Edinburgh, and the various boys ‘bad and good!’ that she knew. The instrumental backing is slight but adding just enough flavour to it. This is just one of her strengths at playing a live show – she can command an audience with just her and her guitar, but also use a full band to bring her songs to life.
There’s an impressive amount of light and shade in not just her recorded music but also in the live show. ‘Anton,’ which she describes as being probably her heaviest song, could simply degenerate into thrashed guitars and streaming, but she and her band do this in a way that still demonstrates restraint and is all the more powerful for it. On the other hand there’s ‘Chicken Supermarket‘ which sees her dreaming about swimming in a sea of jelly and taking magic mushrooms with Billy Connolly. (She is at pains to point out that her dream about the Big Yin was a romantic one, and not a sexual one.)
After a final ‘Murder Mystery‘ it’s time to depart into a wet, Scottish night, but the thought remains that we may not be able to see her in venues this small for much longer. Sure, I could get precious about this, and while I’m guaranteed to brag about having done it, I’ll take even more satisfaction in the ‘I told you so!’ as her profile rises sharply.
…and Holly, I hope this passes muster!
