Norah Jones at the Roundhouse

Norah Jones
Beth Orton
Roundhouse, 10 September 2012

I have two confessions to make. First, I don't remember even applying for tickets for this free show, held as part of the month-long iTunes Festival at the Roundhouse (I unsuccessfully applied for Jack White tickets and must have clicked this show too). Secondly, I don't mind Norah Jones but have never been a big enough fan to want to see her live, I can only presume I was drawn to the presence of Beth Orton on the bill, who I did actually want to see live. Now that's out of the way, I must admit this was a pretty wonderful show all round so all-in-all a rather happy accident.

One of the good things about going to a show being recorded for TV (or iTunes: wherever it will end up), is that things always start more promptly and Beth Orton arrived onstage at exactly 7.45pm, just as advertised.  Although her albums are musically quite diverse with lots of interesting things going on, far from your typical folk record, tonight she's alone with just her acoustic guitar, wearing a simple orange dress and her hair looking cool and dishevelled as if she had been nervously fussing with it beforehand.  Tonight's performance was really a showcase for her forthcoming album, Sugaring Season (out on October 1, she tells us helpfully), her first new record in six years, and stripped down and unadorned it sounds truly lovely, allowing her distinctive, quivering but powerful voice to soar above. I'm sure while singing for her own devoted fans there's usually awed silence during these acoustic performances, but here much of the crowd appears to be Norah Jones fans and there's that horrible buzz of people chatting throughout all her songs which spoils the effect somewhat. That said she gets a good response applause-wise after every song and she's every bit the professional, sweetly smiling and introducing each song. She also rather nicely says that the last time she played here it was with the great Bert Jansch, and it's touching to hear her mention the folk legend, who was something of a mentor to young Beth, however briefly.

Other than the new songs Orton does treat us to a few old favourites too including Touch Me With Your Love and Someone's Daughter from her debut album but the best moment for me was hearing her play Stolen Car, the song that first made me prick up my ears and take notice of Orton, and the purely acoustic version she plays tonight sounds so different, intimate and delicate to the one on Central Reservation. Hearing her like this re-enforces for me that Orton is without a doubt one of our great folk stars, there definitely wouldn't be artists like Laura Marling without her, and she certainly deserves to mentioned alongside the likes of her hero Jansch and Sandy Denny.

I think my opinion of Norah Jones, like many others, was shaped by her first album, Come Away With Me: a pleasant, slightly jazzy, easy listening affair, but it seems in recent years Jones has been moving into slightly edgier fare, with her last album, Little Broken Hearts, produced by Danger Mouse, which is well represented tonight. I'm also surprised to find that for much of the show she plays guitar (sometimes acoustic but mostly electric), even playing a few solos, and is actually a pretty fine guitar player. Looking like a 50s film star in a light brown, belted dress with her new short hairdo, she looks pretty kick-ass behind an SG guitar and is much more than the smooth-voiced, piano-playing chick she's often portrayed as. Live the songs have a bit more kick in them than you'd expect. Starting off with What Am I To You?, which opens sounding like the child of Steely Dan's Showbiz Kids and Elton John's Benny And The Jets, she moves into the noirish title track of Little Broken Hearts while Say Goodbye actually has a bit of swing to it. 

Jones briefly moves over to keyboards (I'm pretty sure it's a Wurlitzer) for a few songs but I have to say it's less exciting when she does and when she finally straps back on her guitar I'm kind of relieved and it's actually more fun to see her wielding a guitar and playing a few licks, although one of the best moments comes when she swaps it for an acoustic and plays Black: one of the songs from Danger Mouse's spaghetti Western influenced album, Rome. Near the end though she does put the guitar down and goes to the piano while the rest of the band leave the stage and plays some of the songs she's best known for, such as Don't Know Why and her cover of Hank Williams' Cold Cold Heart, which naturally the crowd goes wild for. 

But it's the creepy, slowly building Miriam that really impresses. If you've seen the David Lynch-esque promo video that accompanies it you will probably understand and live it lives up to that spookily, smooth vision with the band accompanying her on piano. 

For the encore there was another change of pace as, armed with her acoustic guitar, the rest of the band gathered round her and her old timey microphone with acoustic instruments (a upright bass and an accordion among them), like an old country act about to record a session for the Grand Ole Opry, and turned songs like Sunrise and Come Away With Me into lovely country tunes, crooned in that beautiful, smoky voice of hers, which always sounds magnificent.

Re-watching some of the performances on iTunes and YouTube it doesn't really capture the atmosphere of the concert and sounds smoother than it did in person, which is a shame, because live Jones is a lot less mellow and a lot more fun than you'd imagine. At the end of the show I overheard someone describing her voice as "like someone blowing you a kiss" and I really couldn't put it more beautifully than that.