Nina Nastasia – London Roundhouse 13/08/08

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Well, they really pulled out the stops at the Roundhouse. For their “Colour Your Summer” season, the impressively modern, if slightly sterile Chalk Farm venue has been transformed into something more akin to a high-class Parisien jazz club- thick red curtains draped around an enclosed, intimate circle of candlelit tables, disco balls reflecting the light of a velvet black backdrop sparkling with pure white light, table service on hand all night to refresh your drinks. It’s a shame, then, that the music couldn’t quite live up to the opulence of the venue. New York “gothic-bluegrass” five-piece O’ Death were an enjoyable entrée but the Roundhouse certainly wasn’t the venue to bring the most out of their rowdy, marvelously sinister Appalachian folk. Sprinkling some new tracks in amongst old favourites like ‘Adelita’ and ‘Only Daughter’, it’s always a pleasure to see a band who put so much fierce energy into their performances but in truth it wasn’t a patch on their sublime Luminaire set last year.

Nina Nastasia also failed to live up to expectations. She’s blessed with a wonderfully warm, down-to-earth voice which although lacking in idiosyncracy never fails to impress. But her songwriting, although seldom damagingly clichéd sticks far too closely to the staple folk themes of love and loss and her melodies, although well-crafted, are often unexceptional. An odd setlist, too willing to wallow in mid-tempo filler didn’t help, and for the most part she lacked the arresting intensity of other singer-songwriters of her ilk. Part of that can be blamed on the no-frills set-up (just Nina and her guitar); she was really aching for some backing or even a change of instrument. But I think the more significant problem was her obvious shyness, which also came through in her forced and meandering banter (although getting the lighting man to mess about with the spotlight was a cute touch). It’s a real shame, as she really came to life on a couple of her edgier, darker-tinted numbers that also highlighted her underused talents as a guitarist- a few more of these could have transformed her performance as much as the venue she played in.