REVIEW: EMMY THE GREAT AT BRISTOL FLEECE (11/10/11)
Emmy the Great pulled in a pretty impressive crowd at Bristol’s Fleece, considering her easy on the ear brand of indie folk is everywhere at the moment. Emma Lee Moss (aka Emmy the Great) is very usually very easy on the eye but tonight, she was not a happy bunny. Her ten yard stare burrowed its way across the heads of the silent crowd as she gurned her way through the set. It was really uncomfortable at times but then she sings so sweet it kind of counterbalanced it a bit.
This was a definite gig of two halves, a slow burner. She started off with a mix of old and new which, as much as it pains me to say, tended to blur into one big forgettable sound. Songs which, on record, are a pure delight fell short of the beauty in this live setting. Songs like Eastern Maria, Dinosaur Sex and Cassandra were nice but that’s about it, which was a real shame as she has the potential to be brilliant, like Laura Marling or Feist but just not here, not now. It’s not like she wasn’t trying though. Hell she even got some weird bells out and started going all Bat for Lashes on our ass as a precursor to the uber twee song Exit Night.
Thankfully, things picked up mid set, after a bit of banter. And a bit more energy with the singalong, staccato track Mia, which tells a story about going on a date with a boy and listening to Mia (who Emma says she’s fallen out with after a Twitter spat). The opening lyric: “The day that we took out a car in the rain is the day you forgot how to brake and see how quickly the picture will change…” set the song up perfectly. She went on to play a beautiful and heartbreaking rendition of We Almost Had A Baby, the best song off her debut album First Love . And she even threw in a Weezer cover of Island in the Sun in tribute to former bassist Mikey Walsh you killed himself earlier this month. RIP 
Words and photo: Laura Williams
