Joan As Police Woman at the Union Chapel

Joan As Police Woman

Union Chapel, 29 March 2022

This was yet another postponed Covid-gig, originally scheduled to happen way back in 2020, what now feels like a lifetime ago, so much has happened. Even Joan As Policewoman has released three whole albums in the interim: Covers Two, Live and a collaboration with Tony Allen and Dave Okumu called The Solution Is Restless, which features heavily tonight.

I still feel a little weird going to gigs now and was one of the few still wearing a mask but I personally don't find it a hindrance and it's actually been nice not to worry about how I look (and to be safe too of course). 

Although Joan Wasser hasn't featured on this blog before (other than her 2019 album Damned Devotion making it into my list of favourite albums for that year), I have actually seen her live before way back in 2005, supporting Rufus Wainwright at the Shepherd's Bush Empire, where she was also a member of his band. I remember she performed alone on stage that night but was utterly captivating and I was impressed enough that I immediately bought her brilliant self-titled debut EP and have followed her career through the years. Given how much I've enjoyed her albums, I have no idea why I never went to see a Joan As Police Woman headline show after that but when Damned Devotion stayed constantly on my playlist that year, I knew I finally had to see her do a full show on her own.

Of course Covid and lockdowns got in the way and when I originally purchased a ticket I was anticipating hearing her treat us to lots of tunes from the aforementioned 2019 album that won my heart. Sadly for me, with the postponement, Damned Devotion is now very much in her past and her most recent release, The Solution Is Restless, is the record she is showcasing tonight, which I unfortunately haven't heard yet, although I know it's been critically acclaimed.

The show started with the full-on groove of Get My Bearings (excellent title for a first song), with Wasser playing piano in outfit of clashing patterns, that somehow looked incredibly stylish, and the rest of her band situated around the Union Chapel's pulpit joined by Dave Okumu on guitar wearing a positively wizard-like hooded robe. As this is my introduction to The Solution Is Restless, my first impression is that the new record sounds pretty jazzy and it's not surprising that the band are soon jamming out, making their way through several more songs (Take Me To Your Leader, Masquerader and Geometry Of You - all sounding pretty groovy), some on guitar and some on piano, before she returns to more familiar territory (for me at least) with the cool strum of Hard White Wall and her stunning solo cover of Bowie's Sweet Thing,  before returning to the piano to give us a very playfully jazzy version of Michael McDonald's I Keep Forgetting.

This unusual show had no support act and for some reason was split into two, with a half hour "jazz break" as she herself called it. I have no idea why, as it was only the length of a standard two hour show at most but after the Michael McDonald number the band disappeared from the stage and a good many people disappeared from the church to get drinks (understandably you're not allowed drinks in the chapel). I stayed put, wishing they would just get on with things but maybe when things get jazzy, bands need jazz breaks, who knows.

Anyway, finally after thirty minutes of boredom, Joan and her band returned, bringing out another song from another of her collaborations, Let It Be You, from the album she made with Benjamin Lazar Davis (who I believe was in her band tonight). After this upbeat start to the second set, she then got moody again, with a song from her debut EP, Feed The Light. Given that was my starting point for Joan's music, it was lovely to hear her going right back to the beginning of her solo career. The song still sounds incredible and has always reminded me a little of Jeff Buckley, who of course was her boyfriend before his death. 

I only got one treat from Damned Devotion, the brilliant single Tell Me, which of course was an absolute highlight. In a better, just world it would have been a massive hit, and is definitely one of the poppiest moments of the night. 

Then things return to The Solution Is Restless, with the soulful Dinner Date which she tells us came about while recording the album during lockdown, the reward at the end of the recording session being "the dinner date" they all would have. This was the only song where Joan didn't play an instrument for the majority of the song, just throwing in some keyboards at the end. She then took to the piano again for a proper jam session of the song The Barbarian, with the groove extending to over ten minutes.

The Magic, another poppy, danceable moment, felt like the perfect ending to the set but, due to time constrictions (the show had to end at 10.30 on the dot due to being a church on a residential street), she admitted that usually this was the part the band would again leave the stage and then come back for an encore, but tonight they were just going to play through it. I find encores on the whole incredible fake (only a few times have I seen genuine ones) so I was grateful there wasn't going to be another "jazz break".

For this Joan performed a solo song on the piano, the plaintive Start Of My Heart (the second song of the night from her second album To Survive) and then grabbing her guitar again for a cover of the Timmy Thomas song, Why Can't We Live Together, which showcased her guitar skills and ended things on a lovely, sweet note.

Joan thanked us for keeping our tickets for two years and for keeping in touch, "it really helped me stay alive". She also encouraged us all the stay weird, something I think she has always embraced with her eclectic music, which obviously just keeps growing and evolving into new and wonderfully strange and interesting places. So much has changed in those two years and so has Joan As Police Woman, but in the best possible way. I can't wait to see what she does next.