Titine La Voix Live
Review
It has been far too long since I had last caught a full Titine La Voix live set. That is my regret & while it was rubbed in by the excellence of the evening, at least it gave me the reviewing advantage that longer gaps between reviews grant artists space to evolve & hence provide some real substance to my piece when it does arrive.
None more so than on this occasion & to a degree which took even me by surprise &, to be fair, all the audience to whom I spoke.
You may think, as I certainly did, that a singer with a voice like Titine's which has long been admired & loved, might well develop but the capacity to jump from fantastic to something even greater wasn't really feasible in any one.
I stand corrected.
I first saw the artist now known as Titine La Voix fronting her compelling indie band the Barbarellas. Subsequently she joined rockabilly group The Scatsville Busters who feature on "Hot Music Live Presents Volume One" playing the Titine penned & sung "Where's The Boom Boom?" (https://hotmusiclivepresents.bandcamp.com/album/hot-music-live-presents-volume-one).
Since then when I've seen her, she has set aside for now her own writing & the instruments such as guitar & violin she played live, to present herself as a classic chanteuse, crooning a jazz orientated set intimately into the mic.
However her set has exploded in recent times & now can only be described as eclectic or as a long list: whether going on last night's repertoire or her own promotional material: encompassing jazz, swing, reggae, alternative, soul, pop, blues, ska etc etc.
Working as a team with her manager/collaborator Tracey as ‘20:20 Entertainment' they are geared up for a huge variety of types of gig from care homes, themed events, weddings, parties to festivals (she is even part of a Wham!/George Michael tribute act) apart from more traditional ones such as at Apehangers which I witnessed: hence the vast selection of songs she has available for deployment. It's noticeable how she fine tunes the setlist not just at the start (she was still tweaking it immediately before starting) but mid-gig to respond to the audience.
However I have left the best to last. Outstanding as her voice has always been (and she made the final of the national open mic at the O2 Dome), she has by various means, including extra training & a lot of hard work, developed it still further, adding new rich layers of tone & depth & her lower register in particular is a thing of wonder. And all without any of the trite tricks lesser singers do to show off & divert from both inadequacies in their technique & lack of true feeling. What she does have is most impressive power & that showed in particular with the number of vocally challenging songs she performed with aplomb and panache such as 'Piece of my Heart'.
For Titine sings with her heart as well as her voice & this is something she has always had. A charismatic presence & delivery is just part of her full & truthful approach to performance, something no audience can resist.
Stunned as I was by her set, I spoke to several regular attendees at her gig (one of whom was a fellow professional musician) & they confirmed that last night had indeed seen a significant gear change upwards: so you can imagine how lucky I felt to be there.
That too applied to the audience present, (which was a pretty diverse one) the majority of whom I imagine had not seen her before. The dancing started early & by the end the venue was heaving with gyrating forms. Glasses got knocked off tables, Titine had to dodge around to avoid the more exuberant. That sort of thing. I enjoyed it enormously. So did everyone else.
