It’s Valentines Night in Newcastle and as the weather turns colder and colder, we headed off to our second gig in two months. Sunday was turning out to be quite action packed, after the excitement of the Chinese New Year Festivities on Stowell Street. We took a detour into Turtle Bay to see what everyone is talking about. Looks like we’ll need to pay it another visit soon.
Lucy Spraggan Northumbria Uni
Northumbrian University’s Students union, has a couple of venues for gigs. We’d seen Badly Drawn Boy there years ago. Turns out Lucy Spraggan was going to be on in the same room. However the room had been shrunk down to give a closer intimate gig feel. The room was curtained off on both sides leaving a space down the centre straight to the stage.
Doors opened at 7pm and it wasn’t long before Jamie Lee Harrison took to the stage and played a few cover songs and a few original songs.
Jamie Lee Harrison, is a local singer songwriter, he was a contestant in 2013’s X Factor.
Next up was Lucy Spraggan. She first sprang to fame back in 2012 on the X factor doing the rarest of things… singing her own original material. The song ‘Last Night’ played by Lucy on her acoustic guitar with the witty lyrics of blaming bad behaviour on alcohol “Last night I told ya I loved ya…Woke up blamed it on the Vodka” blew the judges away and she made it to the live finals. However, it became apparent that she wasn’t your average manufactured pop star and she left the show due to ill health.
With just Lucy and a pianist accompanying her it was a stripped down, no frills gig which showcased her talent. The crowd lapped up old favourites ‘Tea and Toast’, ‘Jeremy Kyle’ and recent single ‘Unsinkable’. Her anecdotes about falling in love in America (while name checking the states she visited) and her attempt to impress a patron of a Blues Club went down well.
Lucy had a real connection with the crowd, and kept the patter flowing. At one point she asked for a show of hands from people who had been to her gigs before. Followed by asking “Who had been to see her gig before X-Factor?”, there were only a couple of hands. “Good job I went on there then, otherwise it would be empty!”
She plugged here new EP “Home” a couple of times, but added that she’d sign it later. I love the fact that she had time to give back to anyone that wanted to see her for an autograph. As a fan of various bands in my life, being able to get something signed was hard to come by. Well Done Lucy, we loved the gig and Love your music.
Leave a Reply