British soul-singer-songwriter Michael Kiwanuka was hailed by the BBC as the winner of the BBC Sound in 2012. With his no nonsense, simplified approach to good music, showcasing it in such a beautiful hallowed establishment was sure to be a magical experience.
Ainslie Wills was our opener, and unfortunately I was only able to catch the last couple of songs of her early set. Reminiscent of Fiona Apple or Joni Mitchell with a bit of grunt, I’d like to think there’s a bit more to her than meets the eye and ears. It was a little hard to fill the halls of St Stephen’s Uniting Church with just a couple of guitars. So perhaps worth a second opportunity to see her strut her stuff onstage?
The punters took the intermission between acts to get up and catch some fresh air and a quick trip to the convenience store to grab some water after the merch table ran out, and then we all settled back in for our Heavenly Sounds headliner.
It’s refreshing to see an artist who simply gets up and performs and has no superfluous production but allows the music to charm the audience. Immediately we’re under this spell courtesy of an instrumental number that then leads seamlessly into “If You’d Dare”. Kiwanuka then picks up the pace for “Tell Me A Tale” but frustratingly the first couple of songs in the set are a bit of a noisy whitewash, predominantly drowning in bass. Performing in a church with ridiculously high ceilings poses an acoustic challenge for our sound engineer but once we reach “Rest” the sounds and instruments are achieving more clarity and Kiwanuka’s smooth vocals are starting to cut through.
During the middle portion of the set, Kiwanuka’s band mates decide to take a breather and leave him onstage to fly solo. Both ’Any Day Will Do Fine’ and ’I Won’t Lie’ have a uniquely melancholy anguish sound to them with the simple guitar strums of our leading man. “You’ll never leave me, you’ll always be part of the person that I’ve become” he laments in ’I Won’t Lie’ and we want to believe that he will move on to greener pastures with a happy heart.
It’s a short and solid set as we soon reach our main closer ’Home Again’ with its almost waltzing guitar strummed beat and brush snare that sways from side to side. After a quick encore Kiwanuka closes the night with ’I’ll Get Along’ which sits somewhere in the not too pacey range of his tracks but it allows us an opportunity to groove in our pews and take one last savouring taste of the music.
Kiwanuka’s music and sound harks back to old school soul artists like Robert Cray, Donny Hathaway and Bill Withers with a mellow likeable groove, pleasant to the ear and enjoyable to sit and just take in on a warm Wednesday evening in late March. Heavenly Sounds has been delivering wonderful performances in unique venues like St Stephen’s Uniting Church and giving artists like Michael Kiwanuka a place to perform that is wonderfully suited to his sound.
———-
