Beverley Knight

                                                                             British Soul/R&B sensation and three time Mobo award winner, Beverley Knight wowed a surprisingly light crowd with a performance that was as emotion fuelled as any ever witnessed at the Plymouth Pavilions. With her band already on stage, Beverly followed her three fantastic sounding backing singers, one male, two female, onto the fully carpeted stage set, complete with obligatory stair case, and instantly got the fully seated crowd out of their seats and dancing. Arriving in Plymouth on the final date of the currant tour supporting her new best of album, Voice, the power and quality of her voice caught me by surprise as opening number, Made it Back set the incredibly high standard for the gig right from the very start. With Beverley prowling every inch of the large stage available to her, and orchestrating the band and singers into producing exactly, the timing, sound and harmonies that she obviously demands from them, only Joss Stone have I seen produce a performance with the intensity of deliverance in evidence tonight, as Beverley obviously feels the music and songs in a way few others do. Its true that the level of sound could possible have rivalled that of the recent Motorhead gig, especially when she went all out to hit the piercing, high pitched, power laden notes which her more rock orientated numbers contained, but the vocal control that she possesses on the slower numbers, such as Sista Sista, and during the acoustic part of the set, was able to bring deep emotion to all those present.  Unsurprisingly the big hits, ‘Shoulda Woulda Coulda, and her interpretation of Janis Joplin’s classic, Piece of My Heart, got great receptions and vocal support throughout, as did her tribute to Aretha Franklin, Rock Steady, but she was in so much control that every song was enthusiastically greeted. One of my favourites of the evening was the next single, out next year, Black Butta, at its intro Beverley was strutting around with no little resemblance to Tina Turner, which was not surprising as it got up to speed it is very, very similar to the latters great, Nutbush City Limits, whose words fit almost perfectly, but as they say, keep the best till last, and tonight she did as an utterly brilliant version of, Come As You Are, finished the show and the tour on a rock-meets-soul-meets-R&B high that surely deserved a bigger crowd to witness it.                                                                 

Greg Taylor