The #TEAMw21 run of dates at Bush Hall, continues. Due to illness to two members of the original support act (The Adelaides), they had to cancel, so tonight’s support act was an 18 year old singer/songwriter from South Shields, who goes by the name of Sonny. I don’t think anyone in Bush Hall had heard of him before tonight, but after less than a couple of minutes, most people knew they would not forget him!
Let’s say straight away, that he is not a “Country” singer by any stretch of the imagination. But he is, without a doubt, the most promising RnB/Soul singer I have heard, without exception! Sounding like a cross between Bruno Mars and Craig David on his opening numbers, “Princess” and “Wage A War”, the third song, “Since We’ve Begun”, reminded me of early Stevie Wonder, (and you can’t really get much better praise than that)! A Sam Sparro cover “Black & Gold” was followed by his two recent single releases “Yesterdays Gone” and “Ain’t To Proud To Beg”, before performing “Calm Down” and finishing with “What’s Going On”. A confident and powerful performance throughout, with ‘age related’ lyric writing, Sonny is one to watch, and If you like a bit of RnB/Soul, I would urge you to check him out and download his EP “Hopeless Romance”.
TEAMW21 have followed Catherine since her appearance at the inaugural "Under The Apple" Tree show at Cadogan Hall where she appeared on a tiny stage in the foyer of the entrance hall. It’s hard to imagine that just over a year ago Catherine McGrath played to a handful of people at the beginning of the “Two Ways Home” monthly songwriter round-up’s at The Metropolitan pub in London’s Westbourne Park. Even then, you could tell she was a star in the making. Her hard work since then has seen her catapulted to one of the UK’s country music favourite performers.
Performing with a full band, the sell-out crowd sang along to all of her 11 song set, which indicated just how solid her fan base has become, as her debut album isn’t released until the end of July. A familiar set (to those who have seen her live before), opening with “Just In Case” and “Starting From Now”, before performing one of her newer songs “Good At Love”, Catherine gives a performance way beyond her age.
She performed the Rascal Flatts number “Ellsworth”, a song she has truly made her own, acoustically, before launching into “Cinderella”, “Lost In The Middle”, “Thought It Was Gonna Be Me”, the co-write with Sam Ellis “Enough For You”, before finishing with the current single “Wild” and the popular “Talk Of This Town”. Looking at the track listing for the upcoming album, there is still a lot of new and unperformed material, to look forward to.
Talk Of The Town is released on 27th July with a ten date tour to follow in September.
