Bella Hardy Queen's Hall Edinburgh 24th November 2024 Review
Bella Hardy was at the Queen’s Hall Edinburgh tonight, a stop-off date on her current 2024 tour and, despite the weather conditions, people were obviously taking the opportunity to catch up with this multiple award winning folk music artist.
This was an odd show in many respects as it started nearly 20 minutes late, and as we all soon found out, major PA problems had caused the delay. Only the technical wizardry of the team there tonight had sorted things out in time for us all to have a show at all.
Bella Hardy is a hugely experienced musician who has performed at music festivals since the age of 13, but something was obviously not right tonight. Despite opening with two well known traditional songs, “Hares On The Mountain” and “My Johnny Was a Shoemaker”, the first set seemed to be for most of it just getting made up on Bella’s whims and she was fortunate to have Jenn Butterworth (guitar) on stage with her as someone who had the musical and performance skills to effortlessly adapt to unexpected set-list changes and guitar tunings and make it look like it was all pre-planned.
We were all told later by Bella Hardy that this was her first tour outing since 2019, so perhaps that and the unexpected technical problems had put her off her performance stride a little, but that still should not be happening with someone with this level of talent and decades of live performances behind her. There was almost a nervousness to this first half performance as stories from Bella filled the gaps in what looked simply a lack of pre-show preparation, and people that I talked to at the interval had also noticed this lack of structure.
Whatever the problems of the first set, the second half of the show saw a far calmer and more organised Bella Hardy take to the stage, but still there seemed at times to be that sense of someone who was for some reason still a little nervous on stage.
What was never in doubt tonight though was the talent level of Bella Hardy as a singer/songwriter, and whether these were traditional music/songs or Bella Hardy’s own compositions, her self-taught skills as a fiddler and her abilities as a vocalist were obvious.
Bella Hardy is clearly a gifted songwriter and the ability to take elements of the story behind a traditional song like “Ballad of Tam Lin” and turn them into “Queen of Carter’s Bar” takes skill. Also, across both sets tonight it was also clearly obvious from songs like “Sylvia Sovay”, “The Darkening of The Day” and “Sleeping Beauty” that Bella Hardy has the ability to almost paint in words the subject matter of her songs and the instinctive ability to play with phrasing and timing on her vocals in endless permutations. Clear too from some songs tonight is Bella Hardy’s ability to cross many different song genres with her vocals.
It would be nice if there were near-future Queen’s Hall dates coming from Bella Hardy, as underneath whatever was happening at times tonight on stage, Bella Hardy is clearly a gifted singer/songwriter.
Review by Tom King © 2024
www.artsreviewsedinburgh.com
This was an odd show in many respects as it started nearly 20 minutes late, and as we all soon found out, major PA problems had caused the delay. Only the technical wizardry of the team there tonight had sorted things out in time for us all to have a show at all.
Bella Hardy is a hugely experienced musician who has performed at music festivals since the age of 13, but something was obviously not right tonight. Despite opening with two well known traditional songs, “Hares On The Mountain” and “My Johnny Was a Shoemaker”, the first set seemed to be for most of it just getting made up on Bella’s whims and she was fortunate to have Jenn Butterworth (guitar) on stage with her as someone who had the musical and performance skills to effortlessly adapt to unexpected set-list changes and guitar tunings and make it look like it was all pre-planned.
We were all told later by Bella Hardy that this was her first tour outing since 2019, so perhaps that and the unexpected technical problems had put her off her performance stride a little, but that still should not be happening with someone with this level of talent and decades of live performances behind her. There was almost a nervousness to this first half performance as stories from Bella filled the gaps in what looked simply a lack of pre-show preparation, and people that I talked to at the interval had also noticed this lack of structure.
Whatever the problems of the first set, the second half of the show saw a far calmer and more organised Bella Hardy take to the stage, but still there seemed at times to be that sense of someone who was for some reason still a little nervous on stage.
What was never in doubt tonight though was the talent level of Bella Hardy as a singer/songwriter, and whether these were traditional music/songs or Bella Hardy’s own compositions, her self-taught skills as a fiddler and her abilities as a vocalist were obvious.
Bella Hardy is clearly a gifted songwriter and the ability to take elements of the story behind a traditional song like “Ballad of Tam Lin” and turn them into “Queen of Carter’s Bar” takes skill. Also, across both sets tonight it was also clearly obvious from songs like “Sylvia Sovay”, “The Darkening of The Day” and “Sleeping Beauty” that Bella Hardy has the ability to almost paint in words the subject matter of her songs and the instinctive ability to play with phrasing and timing on her vocals in endless permutations. Clear too from some songs tonight is Bella Hardy’s ability to cross many different song genres with her vocals.
It would be nice if there were near-future Queen’s Hall dates coming from Bella Hardy, as underneath whatever was happening at times tonight on stage, Bella Hardy is clearly a gifted singer/songwriter.
Review by Tom King © 2024
www.artsreviewsedinburgh.com
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