Beth Orton is a singer and a songwriter. And a natural storyteller too. Many of her songs are inspired by the human condition. Often drawing from a deep well of self-doubt, loss, loneliness, vulnerability, and the debilitating impact of chronic illness, yet always driven by such great spirit and determination, Orton produces subconscious exploratory narratives born of personal memory.
This is no more true than on Weather Alive, her eighth studio album, released only last month to widespread critical acclaim. Self-produced after having been unceremoniously dropped by her record company, Weather Alive contains some of the most bold and innovative music of Orton’s nigh-on 30 year career and marks for her a supreme triumph over adversity.
After a series of gigs supporting Alanis Morissette back in June, followed by a short run of festival appearances, tonight in Leeds is the last date on Beth Orton’s current headlining tour of the UK before she sets sail for North America. Like most, if not all the earlier shows on this tour tickets have long since been sold out. This is in marked contrast to when I last saw Orton in Leeds some six years ago at the city’s Beckett University in front of what was a disappointingly small crowd and it all points to the fact that this former Brit Award winner and two-time Mercury Prize nominee’s star, both creatively and commercially, is once more on the rise.
The atmosphere in the Brudenell Social Club is crackling with anticipation. Coming onto the stage with her band – Ben Sloan (drums), longtime collaborator Ali Friend (upright bass and bass guitar), Hinako Omori (synths), Stephen Patota (guitar), and Pete Wareham (saxophone and flute) – a little before 9.30pm, Beth Orton immediately heads to Weather Alive, playing the first four tracks from the album with nary a pause for breath. On the record these songs are already perfectly sublime, Orton’s words immersed in gently undulating soundscapes into which the listener can just quietly submerge. In concert, though, they assume an even greater depth, a grainy texture – the fluttering sax on ‘Fractal’ being a case in point – and heightened emotional resonance yet do not forsake any of the spiritual ambience that lies at their heart.
By the time that the clock had moved on to 10.50pm Beth Orton had completed a three song encore and played Weather Alive in its entirety, the absolute highlights of which were ‘Arms Around A Memory’ – at the end Orton turned to her impeccable band, her face wreathed in a huge smile, and said “thanks everyone, that was wonderful” – and the album’s closing track ‘Unwritten’ which assumed a jazz-leaning mysticism not dissimilar in feel to that captured by Van Morrison on his 1980 album Common One.
And as if all of that wasn’t quite enough Beth Orton still found time and space to leaf through her back catalogue and pick out several songs from it, including ‘She Cries Your Name’ and, in response to what at first seemed like a forlorn shout from the crowd, ‘Stolen Car’. Orton had initially appeared to dismiss the request, referring good-naturedly to this song from her 1999 album, Central Reservation, as “that fucking classic tune”, but later delivered an absolutely spellbinding solo version of it, the cracks in her voice highlighting age, reason and how far she has travelled since then. At the song’s conclusion her band members spontaneously joined with the crowd in applauding her, so good had it been. It was simply stunning, just like the concert itself; a hugely triumphant end to the tour.
Photos: Simon Godley
More photos are at Beth Orton – Brudenell Social Club, Leeds, 16th October 2022
