Emmy the Great – The Fleece, Bristol, 11/10/11

Converse trainers and ballet pumps covering every inch of the floor, Bristol’s Fleece is at full capacity with dans of Emmy the Great swamping the bar and clinging to the venue’s walls. They defend their position within the crowd while battling with the ever growing heat.

From this din front woman Emma-Lee Moss and her chosen few silently emerge. Among her backing band are Grace Dent and Ric Hollingbery of Pengilly’s, but unusually there’s no sign of staple companion Euan Hinshelwood. Emmy’s figure is so slight and contained it takes the audience a few moments to comprehend the star of the evening stands before them. Then a solemn whoop is followed by riotous applause; the kind that is usually accepted with a vigorous opening. Instead Emmy plays a graceful, solitary rendition of ‘Eastern Maria’. A strange choice for an opener; it’s a song to signify the end of a gig, if only the singer-songwriter’s sudden appearance didn’t negate it.

From there on in, the night has many faces. The enigmatic and haunting drone of ‘Dinosaur Sex’ leads into the dance floor plod of ‘Sylvia’ and a revived, electrified version of ‘A Woman, A Woman (A Century of Sleep)’. Swaying from gentle to fierce, and coyly reserved to brutally honest, in similar circumstances most musicians would lose control of their set and amount to a schizophrenic mess of emotion. Emmy handles the leaps in temperament like they were toast to her bitter-sweet marmalade. Before long the stage is awash in a guitar swell, and unpredictably new single ‘Paper Forest (In the Afterglow of Rapture)’ provides the pinnacle of attack.

Though a few tracks from debut First Love creep in mid-set, the main body of the gig is awarded to Virtue, albeit an atmospheric and fraught take on the album. The crowd’s reaction reflects the transformation; there’s a buzz in the air like no other. The blatant adoration of Emmy stands as a testament to her music’s irresistible pull. She may not sell as many records as her peers, but in the live sweepstakes she pulls trumps every time.

The ferocious attack of noise is finally broken by the beautiful ‘North’ and ‘Trellick Tower’, two admirable songs carefully chosen to close the set. ‘North’ is the point Emmy has been waiting for; a coming together of her musical talents and emotional resilience, its lyrics simultaneously flushes the venue of heat and brazes cheeks with a blushing warmth. A chaser to ‘North’s gin, as on the album ‘Trellick Tower’ draws the gig to a close with a poignant, resounding sob.