Imelda May

Imelda May spread her wings and flew at the London Palladium on Thursday night. With a new maturity to her vocals she gave a fearless performance, combining emotional vulnerability with total vocal control in a genre-defying set.

Hardly recognisable from her previous rockabilly incarnation, Imelda May glides on stage in black stiletto boots, ripped miniskirt and eye skimming black fringed hair. Personally, I missed the kookie rockabilly style but her new super sexy look seemed to go down well with the at least half the crowd. ‘How d’you like your eggs in the morning?’ called an adoring fan.
Written since her split with guitarist husband, Darrel Higham, her fifth album, Life, Love, Flesh Blood is her most personal to date, with themes of loss and an emerging self. It’s produced by T Bone Burnett and features Jeff Beck and Jools Holland as well as Bono, who mentored her throughout the process. It becomes apparent that her music has taken many a new direction too with something for everyone. Her highly accomplished band as comfortable in sultry blues as they are in easy pop and driving rock.
Imelda May has the vocal range and rich tonal variety to sing pretty much anything, but the gospel sounds of ‘When it’s my time’ with brass section and backing singers brought the slick opening to a dramatic head and truly show-case her ability to be compared to the great female soul singers. Offering some advice for recovering from heart-break she introduces blues-rock inspired ‘Bad Habit’ with the words, ‘Drink wine, go online and buy lots of shoes – it helps!’ ‘Flesh and Blood’ ‘just a little song I wrote’ had an almost music-hall quality and ‘Mayhem’ as the song indicates had the band rocking out and Imelda doing things with her the voice that really must have hurt. When the stage was emptied and she sat quietly with her guitarist to sing ‘The girl I used to be’ we could have been in a small pub with just a handful of friends.

There is no doubt Imelda May is developing greater breadth and freedom as she reaches the middle of her career. Her relaxed, easy-going performance style belies her flawless vocals and the profound emotional connection with each number– whether crying out with love or fear, it’s an intoxicating sound. Sat comfortably in our plush Palladium seats there was no denying, we were in the hands of a singer at the height of her powers.