30 October 2013 (gig)
05 November 2013
Despite a premature exit from Simon Cowells supernova talent show ‘The X Factor’ due to illness, Lucy Spraggan always showed the potential to do better without the show. Her predilection for sharp and wittily worded lyricism and catchy self-proclaimed A-Flop guitar melodies displayed a talent that far outshone the mediocrity of the X Factor factory.
Earlier this year, Spraggan signed to Columbia records and released ‘Join the Club’, an album of songs that she had written over the course of a few years that had been rerecorded with a huge dollop of Columbia Records studio gloss. Songs included the massively youtubed ‘Last Night (Beer Fear)’, the song which originally earned her a place on the X Factor as well as a selection of less jauntily delivered songs, many of which focussed on a short-lived holiday romance that she had written about during the past few years.
Despite her propelling force to fame being the entertaining creation ‘Last Night’, her album displays a far more romantic, borderline doe-eyed disposition in the pint-sized singer.
Last night saw Lucy Spraggan perform to a packed Shepherds Bush Empire, in one of her biggest gigs to date as part of her UK tour. As an openly gay performer, Spraggan’s fanbase is almost entirely female. Not a male face in sight (perhaps with the exception of a few fathers for the younger audiences), which makes for a particularly raucous crowd. Since appearing on television screens across the UK, any hesitancies in her own performances or awkwardness has entirely evaporated and her onstage persona is self-assured and confident.
The night saw her deliver clean and vigorous versions of songs from her album to an appreciative crowd singing a long to each word. The night also saw Lucy Spraggan ask an audience member if she wanted to marry her girlfriend (she said yes) and perform a youtube favourite 'Jeremy Kyle' a catchy number about everyone's (least) favourite daytime television presenter. She even claimed to have met Graham. It was polished and energetic performance, a far cry from the pub gigs around Sheffield you'd imagine her to have begun in, but still to an army of the same sort of super fan. It was an impressive live show.
