Mercoledì 19 Mag 2010, 16:33

Tue 18 May – Lights, Meet Me In Vegas

Opening this female-fronted evening were Marmozets, a young band from Bingley, who blazed through a half-hour set of standard pop-punk. 14-year-old drummer Josh MacIntyre was particularly impressive and warmed the crowd considerably before Meet Me In Vegas took to the stage.

Meet Me In Vegas describe their sound as the self-created genre of 'splash pop' - modern electro-pop combined with everyone's guilty pleasure, 80's synths. Another local band, this time from Skipton, Meet Me In Vegas started off slow but were definitely worth waiting for. With every band member taking on percussion duties, there were plenty of drum beats to match the 80's-style rhythm, and vocalist Christine Reeday hit all the right notes. With such exciting openers, the stage was very well set for Lights.

On the first night of her first UK headlining tour, Lights Poxleitner seemed genuinely humbled by the adulation of the crowd as she took to the stage to open with The Listening. Smiling as ever, she relaxed into a set including the majority of her debut album, also titled The Listening, released for the first time in the UK this week.

The beauty of Lights is the way she expresses emotion in every note she sings, most notably in the stand-out tracks of the evening Face Up and Drive My Soul. This is an artist that genuinely reaches out through her music and can capture the attention of the entirety of a room. There was no chatting through her set - when Lights starts to sing, the audience is in her hands. As I've always found at her shows, it is refreshing to see someone so genuinely appreciative take to the stage and smile the whole way through a set. Her vocals were impeccable as always, combined with the flawless backing of band members Adam and Maurie. Announcing that she will be back in August for the Reading/Leeds festivals, Lights is set to be huge.

It's a shame the to-eager venue staff ushered the audience out before there was a chance to hear the encore.