Ella Eyre
Ella Eyre
O2 ABC, Glasgow
Jonathan Geddes
POP music is currently so filled with collaborations that it's no surprise Ella Eyre has already been involved in two No 1 singles without even an album to her name, resulting in an inevitable hype building around her forthcoming solo work.
There were some commendable attributes on display here, with her stage presence honed and confident throughout.
She bounced on wearing a leather outfit and looking like Emma Peel from the Avengers with a stuck zipper, proving to be a ball of energy from peppy set-opener Wrong About Me and there was never a moment where she didn't cut an assured figure at home in her surroundings, helping the evening motor along at a fair pace.
Her voice, too, was striking. Big and booming, it was a slight surprise that there was only a single balled that tapped into the raw emotion it's suited for, with Alone Too segueing into an accomplished cover of We Don't Have To Take Our Clothes Off.
It was the other songs that presented the problems. For all her vocal richness, the tunes were one-dimensional, from the early rigid soul-pop of Deeper to the girl power relationship angst of All About You and Bullet For You. This was familiar material, not offensively bad but lacking any real sparkle.
Her main set closers of Rudimental team-up Waiting All Night and Paloma Faith and Sigma's Changing (written by Eyre) met a similar fate, delivering identikit drum 'n' bass backing and overwrought vocals to create safe, slick chart-friendly material.
Far better was the encore's fired-up Come Back, a more passionate affair that gave Eyre's talent some breathing space.
She could do with a few more like it.
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