A superb concert, marked by a sublime collaboration between Imelda May and Ronnie Wood

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Anchored by the phenomenal Leo Green Orchestra, Friday Night is Music Night has thrived by marrying excellent vocalists with iconic songbooks. Last year, Beverley Knight tackled the music of Stevie Wonder in a standout concert. Earlier this year, Keane’s Tom Chaplin performed the music of Queen. And last night, award-winning Irish songstress Imelda May bore her Celtic soul on the stage of the London Palladium.

LGO founder Leo Green prefaced May’s entrance with an adoring speech about her musical phrasing and emotional delivery. He was right. Her singing is often a tale of two voices: the vulnerable, delicate strokes, and the urgent, raspy attack.

Celebrating seminal Irish musicians (albeit with several tangents), May and the LGO performed material from the likes of The Cranberries, Van Morrison, Thin Lizzy, Damien Rice, and U2.

Referencing the soul, blues, and gospel music which inspired her, May sang with soulful inflection throughout. Her reading of Van Morrison’s ‘Someone Like You’ was gently sketched – conveying a dizzying, infatuating love – and delivered with exquisite richness by the orchestra. In addition to May’s beguiling and intelligent commentary, her carefully curated set benefitted from a range of emotional touchpoints. Though thrilling the audience with a roaring take on Hozier and Mavis Staples’ ‘Nina Cried Power’, May was able to command audience attention with her sensitive readings of Glen Hansard’s ‘Bird of Sorrow’ and Damien Rice’s ‘The Blower’s Daughter’.

At times, the set veered straight into old-school soul. May was joined on stage by Irish singer and actor Bronagh Gallagher for a rendition of James Carr’s ‘Dark End of the Street’, a haunting ballad about illicit romance also covered noticeably by Percy Sledge and Aretha Franklin. May and Gallagher delivered the song in tribute to the Irish LGBT community. They followed with a rendition of Otis Redding’s ‘Try a Little Tenderness’ which the LGO drove to an appropriately explosive climax. May later closed the concert with the Jackie Wilson rendition of the classic folk ballad ‘Danny Boy’.

Bold and brave performance choices marked the set. As the curtain rose after the interval, May stood centre stage. Harking back to Sinead O’Connor’s infamous appearance on Saturday Night Live, May immediately delivered an a cappella rendition of Bob Marley’s ‘War’ – improvising with the melody with guttural force and commanding her backing vocalists. Expressing admiration for O’Connor’s outspoken politics – boldly telling the audience that O’Connor was correct in her opposition to the Pope and the Catholic Church  – May followed with a rendition of the aching ‘Nothing Compares 2 U’ that meshed the Prince and O’Connor versions.

In the evening’s most exhilarating turn, May was joined by legendary guitarist Ronnie Wood. Together they paid homage to Chuck Berry with a rendition of ‘Wee Wee Hours’ that bled pure blues.

See the full setlist here. 

(Image copyright: Live Nation)