Jessie Ware – Plan B, London 15/08/12

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You can’t help sense the occasion at Jessie Ware’s album launch show for her debut LP Devotion. Although just a Wednesday night in Brixton, at a venue better known for hosting club nights than tastemaster showcases, the evening has the air of a pivotal moment for local-girl-done-good; somewhere between a party atmosphere and nervy expectation. We’re not talking those mythical “remember you were there” moments, even if the scattering of camera phones held head-high during virtually every song plainly shows that this is one all congregated tonight wish to recall. No, at this moment in time, it seems the peak of a first chapter. With her record out next week, this is about celebrating everything that has built up to its release (with promises of a few surprises and special guests) whilst looking firmly to the future. And it’s perhaps the firmest we’ve ever seen the normally laidback South London songstress.

As she takes to the lowly-lit stage, she cuts a striking figure world’s apart from that which you would have witnessed just six months earlier, back when – by her own omissions – her mother “had to buy all the tickets”. Known as a performer previously tackled by her nerves, Ware, clad in a simple but elegant black dress, stands alone in the spotlight, with her backing band shrouded in darkness, scrunching her nose like an Olympic swimmer ready to take the dive.

While her prior live outings might have been tinged with slight awkwardness and littered with unsure small talk, like a big game player in her first championship final, Ware rises to the occasion. Previously, you could be forgiven for thinking that Ware would be forever happier as a bit-parter in somebody else’s track, but after tonight you would have to forgive us for making you eat your words. Storming through the record’s title-track with a real urgency, she stares intently at a designated spot on the wall, rarely moving an inch or diverting her gaze, bating away any fears with her unblinking eyelashes. But as the song draws to a close, a few smirks crack her sullen disposition. “Oh God, I was so nervous,” Ware exclaims, letting off some steam between laughter and an almighty sigh of relief.

If by this point she’s still feeling nervous, then Ware sure knows how to combat it. Letting her guard down a little, the performer truly blossoms, exhibiting a combination of down-to-earth warmth and popstar zeal. Ware precurses the night’s second track ‘Swan Song’ by talking about her local area, asking the crowd if they went to Seven Cocktails beforehand for a tipple or two. Halfway through the track she breaks out of musician-mode once again and smiles to a few familiar faces in the audience. It’s clearly a night for celebration either side of the photographer’s pit.

Ware’s transition from dub guest star to fully blown popstar is the clearest message everyone will take from tonight, so much so that by the time she sings the lines “let the shadows hope to hide or break the dreaming” in ‘Sweet Talk’, you’ve hardly paid any attention to the band in the darkness behind her. It’s the growth of songwriting on display that propels this, her recent single ‘Wildest Moments’ exemplify Ware’s biggest strength. The lyrics and hooks are hardly complex, but it’s simplicity and universality places Ware a cut above the rest. Often you can find yourself guessing the crux of a verse just milliseconds before Ware’s delivery, in that way only truly great pop gems do.

‘110%’, perhaps Ware’s most well-known track to date, is dedicated to Julio Bashmore, who has taken up the reins on the decks tonight. But the night’s true highlight comes, later, with ‘Taking In Water’, a song admittedly very dear to Ware, written about her brother who is “somewhere among the crowd tonight”. As the song begins, Ware visibly fights back the tears, but by the time it comes to a end she’s singing with a sense of triumph, of which the entire audience are sharing with her. Even guest appearances from Sampha (on breakthrough-hit ‘Valentine’) and The Invisible’s Dave Okuma (someone who Ware claims the record couldn’t have been written without) cannot trump this moment.

During the closing seconds of the set, Ware attempts to swing her microphone and catch it, and – of course – she does. Nothing can stop her tonight, and from this phenomenally self-assured performance, we’re not sure anything ever will.