Featuring Cordelia Gartside, Gabriella Jones, Alex Moir, Sean Stewart and Ed & Lawrence
Saturday 22nd March 2014 marks the night the walls of Selly Oak’s Bristol Pear had the privilege of encasing five eye-wateringly talented musicians who showcased the fact that six acoustic-guitar-wielding singer-songwriters can pry a crowd of hedonistic students away from Broad Street and into the convivial arms of one of Selly’s most beloved pubs for BURN FM’s ‘Acoustic Sessions’. Gracing the stage was Cordelia Gartside, Alex Moir, Gabriella Jones, Sean Stewart, and Ed & Lawrence, and not a single applause was half hearted.
Ed & Lawrence kicked off the night with a jovial array of covers from The Black Keys’s ‘Gold on the Ceiling’ to LMFAO’s ‘Sexy and I Know It’. Ed’s roaring vocals certainly captured everyone’s attention and cemented the mood of the evening. His dynamism and confidence left nothing to be desired and the familiarity of his set really warmed up the audience for the evening ahead. Sean Stewart, a country-folk singer-songwriter from Stourbridge took to the modest stage of the Pear to perform some gentle acoustic ballads and even brought up a friend onto the stage for a casual Mcfly cover, which was a fun and energetic crowd-pleaser. Alex Moir delivered an assortment of impressive originals written in a storytelling, folky way but performed with the energy and passion of a rock veteran. Moir wasn’t afraid to shake the walls and showed off a great vocal range through his catchy lyrics. Gabriella Jones had the audience hooked within seconds. Her powerhouse vocals and textured rhythms kept the crowd alert and her sassy lyrics and delivery made her one of the most memorable acts of the night. Being no stranger to the stage, Jones churned out one great original song after the other with cool confidence, and also dropped in a unique cover of Rihanna’s ‘Rude Boy’, showing how her pop-rock genre has no boundaries. Last up was Cordelia Gartside, the Brighton-born singer-songwriter who captured and held the attention of the entire room within the first note, and virtually stole the show. You could hear a pin drop from start to finish. Gartside’s hauntingly ethereal vocals and gentle, twinkling guitar accompaniment were charming and paralysing. Gartside performed a selection of beautifully written originals and kept the crowd in the loop by dropping in anecdotes about the inspiration behind her songwriting.
By and large, the evening boasted a warm, relaxed atmosphere and was embellished by the charisma and confidence of all of the acts from the offset. Another successful night for BURN Live!
Gabriela Quattromini
