Jewel at Omeara

Jewel

Omeara, 4 October 2022 

I finally got to see Jewel! And it was in a tiny venue with just 300 people! I can't believe it, a dream come true and more than lived up to expectations. Crazy to think I got to see two of my dream live concerts within days of each other and this one was all the more amazing given it was a complete surprise.

Last week Jewel announced that she was heading to London on holiday and had decided to play a show while here. The last time Jewel played in London, or the UK for that matter, was way back in 2002. I've actually been a Jewel fan since the 90s and I do remember that show being announced, initially at the Shepherd's Bush Empire and when it switched to the Royal Albert Hall I foolishly was disappointed it had moved to a bigger venue and decided against going. What an idiot I was because, not only is the Royal Albert Hall a wonderful place to see live music (I had never been at that point) but Jewel went off to make her pop album and decided to not to venture onto these shores, gigwise at least, for 20 whole years. I thought I had missed my chance and regretted not going to see her especially since I religiously followed her career and jaunt through different genres and continued to admire and enjoy her music. But after a pretty rough year, I finally had a tiny bit of luck and scored a ticket for this rare show (less than £30 too, amazing!), which, not surprisingly, sold out in minutes.

I had never actually been to Omeara before, which is about ten minutes away from London Bridge station, although I once almost saw Courtney Marie Andrews there before she moved the show to a bigger venue. So I knew it was small but I don't think I was prepared at how small. It's situated beneath a railway bridge so sometimes during the show you could hear the trains rumbling overhead and the room itself was absolutely tiny with a stage that looked only big enough for Jewel and her guitar (which she had even borrowed for the night, that's how spontaneous it all was). It felt absolutely perfect and what an amazing way to see Jewel perform for the first time: as intimate as her infamous early days playing coffee shops.

Of course Jewel, having sold millions of albums since then and even ventured onto movie screen and

TV screens, is a world away from those early humble days and when she finally emerged onto that tiny stage she looked every bit the star she is, wearing a big wide-brimmed black hat, a bright shiny striped suit (with enough cleavage on show to remind us that, yes, she is still a bombshell all these years on) and some really spectacular winged eyeliner on display. Obviously the crowd went wild, but the atmosphere was so filled with anticipation and excitement it really did feel like we were experiencing something special before the show had even started!

She began by giving us the perfect showcase of her incredible voice: an a capella version of Somewhere Over The Rainbow (she of course once played Dorothy in a special stage production of The Wizard Of Oz) and it was clear that everyone in the crowd got chills. Whether you like Jewel's voice or not there's no denying she can really sing and it was truly powerful thing to hear tonight especially standing so close to her (needless to say I had found a spot close to the front of the stage).

She told us that, seeing as it had been so long since she had last played in London, she was going to start where she left off (the last tour here was for the This Way album) and bring us up to date by running through her albums since then. What an awesome way to do it and it worked brilliantly.

She talked about her diversion into pop music territory and then gave us a fantastic acoustic version of her hit Intuition. I think the stripped down version she played live is superior to the recorded one but I still have a lot of respect for the way she tried out different genres, even if she got a lot of flack for it at the time (reminds me a lot of Linda Ronstadt in fact in that way, who later justly got her due) and proved she could do them all. 

She then played one of my all-time, if not favourite Jewel songs of all, the title track of her hugely underrated album Goodbye Alice In Wonderland. It sounded so moving and it was performed with so much emotion and feeling that it felt like she was experiencing every lyric for the first time. It was worth waiting all these years to finally hear live.

We then got the pure storytelling of Rosey And Mick from her country album Perfectly Clear (she completely skipped Sweet And Wild sadly), which actually is an older song from the 90s and felt particularly moving and mesmerising in such an intimate space, despite the rather sad subject matter of a violent marriage (but stuff of pure country songs for sure).

By this point we had got to Jewel's children album Lullaby, which she admitted had been so successful for her that it had funded much of her lifestyle up until now (after her mother stole her money if you remember, worth reading Jewel's brilliant memoir!) so no surprise that we got two songs from this record. She also rather nicely brought out her very cute 11-year-old son, Kase, to sing them with her. First there was the lovely Daydream Land and then Sov Gott (Sleep Well), a gorgeous little lullaby sung in Swedish and the mother-son duo sounded particularly sweet on this: it was clear they enjoy singing together at home and Kase sounded great. I wouldn't be surprised if he ends up being a member of her band some day or even an artist in his own right.

Then we had reached the part in Jewel's life when she got divorced from her cowboy husband Ty Murray, so she sang us an unpublished song from that time called Love Don't Live Here Anymore, which as she said got to the point and sounded like classic Jewel. 

Finally, we had arrived at Jewel's return to folk music, Picking Up The Pieces, and she played a song celebrating her relationship with her dad, which she said gone through some rough times but now was stronger than ever: My Father's Daughter, which was as touching as ever even without Dolly Parton's contribution!

Before moving on to her most recent release (because we had finally reached present day), Jewel paid tribute to Loretta Lynn who had sadly died that day. She asked someone in the audience to Google the lyrics to her song The Pill and sang it completely off the cuff, reading the lyrics of a fan's phone. She said Loretta's music gave her chills but this wonderful tribute to such a pioneering singer songwriter and complete icon was utterly magical and definitely gave us all chills tonight too.

So now she had finally reached her, I think, rather soulful, new album Freewheelin' Woman and she said it was the first record she had released where she hadn't relied on her huge back catalogue of unreleased songs she has written, but rather wrote all the songs specifically for the new record. She said though she wrote about 200 songs just for it before whittling it down to just 12, which is just jaw-dropping but absolutely speaks to her talent. I'm not going to deny that the new album is not my favourite but the song selection she chooses from it tonight was superb. There was the intimate Almost, which although new could have easily been on one of her classic records, the life-affirming Grateful and another song that really showcased the power in her voice, No More Tears. Later someone requests the poppy Alibis, which she admits she hasn't played live before. This song probably harks back to the 0304 era more than any other on the record but it was truly impressive to see her work it out live and I think this simple stripped-back version sounded even better than the one on the record. Amazing how versatile she is though.

Not content with just bringing us up to date though there were also a couple of fresh new tunes. One was called Single Mom and had a jazzy Rickie Lee Jones feel, so she prefaced it with a story of how, once when she was in London years ago she read an interview with Rickie where she jokingly said about the current crop of female songwriters "I hate all the women, except Jewel, she knows she imitates me". Jewel laughed and said "and I do, you'll hear her influence in this song." A whole album influenced by the wonderful Rickie would be no bad thing based on this number anyway!

Another new tune was a lot more rude, if you can believe it. Some places I see people calling it Hate, Hate and other places call it Pussy, so you get the drift. But she told how it was inspired by hearing someone in a park shout "Don't be such a pussy!" leading Jewel to ponder "what a weird thing that we call female genitalia weak?" She laughed, "so we're downhill from here." The lyrics began "my pussy ain't weak, can you handle that, stop calling him a pussy like that, I don't need young girls to think that even our se organs are weak, so stop calling him a pussy." Right on. The song then called for people to stop using the word "faggot", to stop "trash talking men", to stop looking down our noses and "hatin' rednecks" and finally "it's I hate you, you hate me, it's a circle jerk of bigotry" and that we're so stuck on "individuality, we forgot our commonality" and that's why we must start "hating hate." It was protest song but done with a lot of humour and sounded great.

Having finished bringing us up to date, she just asked for requests from the audience and not surprisingly a lot of her blockbusting debut album Pieces Of You was requested (she even signed one guy's box set of it much to his delight) so we got gems like Near You Always, Morning Song, I'm Sensitive (apparently inspired by one of Neil Young's band telling her toughen up!), Foolish Games, Little Sister (particularly fantastic this one), You Were Meant For Me and, ending the show, Who Will Save Your Soul. She might well get fed up playing some of these songs but it was amazing to hear them live and the crowd sang along with everyone like it was an old friend. She also told the long story of how she and Steve Poltz got involved in a drugs bust down in Mexico and how it led to You Were Meant For Me being written. She's been telling this very entertaining story for years, so I won't get into it, but it was a joy to hear it again and in true folk singer style, it took about ten minutes to tell but it was worth every second.

Other songs requested and played included Hands and Life Uncommon from Spirit and Break Me, Standing Still and Love Me Just Leave Me Alone (particularly fantastic this one) from This Way. I called for Down So Long but I wasn't heard while Carnivore is another I'd have loved it if she played but really I have absolutely no complaints: it was a dream of a show and just a perfect introduction to Jewel live.

I know this whole post has just been me gushing but rarely do you see an act you love live up to your expectations so fully and this was a show I've been waiting to see since the 90s. Having seen artists that have no idea how to improvise, it was truly awe-inspiring to see someone of Jewel's natural talent who is able to just play songs shouted out to her, some she had never even played live before or hadn't played in a long time. I realise some she's played for so long that she's an old hand at them now,  and, even though she asks for requests, knows she will play them, but you'd be surprised at how many artists can't do it without being thoroughly rehearsed, especially with such skill and ease as Jewel. That said, she did get a few requests and she fully admitted that she couldn't remember how to play them but a good half of the show was just playing what the audience asked of her and that is such a treat.

She ended the show saying that she no longer likes to do encores because they feel so fake and awkward (very true and very punk rock) and this was such a long show (over two hours!) and full show, it really didn't need the pretense of us calling her back to the stage. Instead she sang a cappella again, yodeling with pure joy on the song Chime Bells because would it really be a Jewel show without some yodeling? Well she didn't disappoint on that count either. And now I can say I saw Jewel live and it was every bit as good as I hoped it would be.