Gabrielle Aplin doesn’t leave the house much. At least, that’s what she tells us during her set at Project House in Leeds. It is true, that live performances have been few and far between in recent years, and aside from her own performance, Aplin will be pleased she made it out tonight.
Opening up was the brilliant Ber, the once-Leeds-based Minnesotan, reconnecting with her West Yorkshire second home. If you haven’t listened to Ber, I’d urge you to do so. Think the vulnerability of Holly Humberstone crossed with the punchy, anthemic delivery of Sigrid. Her honest, diaristic style connects immediately and her disarming chat between songs starts things off excellently.
Lewis Watson follows, songwriter-turned-teacher from Oxfordshire, he is 4 albums deep into his career, with a lot of songs to play. He jokes about fitting them all in to 30 minutes but declines for fear of “giving myself a hernia!” His self-deprecating humour is a perfect foil to the accomplished songwriting and storytelling.
So if Aplin came out tonight for no other reason than to hear these two artists, she would have had a fine time. But her “love of people and songs” is clearly enough to drive this tour and she quietly and unassumingly takes the stage with pianist Pete Lee.
Opening with Panic Cord, we get an immediate sense of the atmosphere Aplin can create with her music. Intimate, engaging, confessional – these are the stories that Aplin delivers in song throughout the night.
Contrastingly, the stories between the songs are equally revealing, but delivered as if Aplin isn’t quite sure what might come next. She seems excited to be in the company of several hundred people and eager to (over)share…well…just about anything with her fans.
As she comes back to the stories of the songs, we hear of her fear of the passing of time, of loss, but also of disco chickens and boyfriend Alfie Hudson-Taylor getting up at the crack of dawn to feed the hens and quail! It’s a varied journey through the mind of Gabrielle Aplin, but at every point, it’s punctuated with exquisite music. New song Magnolia shows her vulnerability, while November delves back into her debut album English Rain, a song that Aplin tells us is as relevant to her now at 33 as it was when written at 18 or 19 years of age.
It’s a set of songs old and new – “a Primark Eras Tour”, Aplin jokes with typical self-deprecation – and that suits the crowd just fine. Newer songs sit alongside old favourites Please Don’t Say You Love Me, Home and her break out cover The Power of Love, which are greeted like old friends. 2013’s Start of Time gets a jazzy makeover, allowing Pete Lee the chance to roam free over the keys.
Returning for encore, a cover of Joni Mitchell’s Big Yellow Taxi brings Alfie and support act Lewis Watson to the stage to contribute backing vocals to a fun version of this classic song. Closing out with one of her early songs – Home – brings everything full circle. We’ve been touched by the music, the generosity of the storytelling, the humour and the longing.
With the fans drifting away into the night, they’re hoping it won’t be too long before Gabrielle Aplin leaves the house again.
