This was the second of the Women Of Soul nights featured at The Toff, the first night last week was a stellar showcase of voices and I was hoping that we’d be stepping up the uber-fun soul and funk vibe of last week. I walked into the gig misjudging the start and missed a few songs from Karen Morales set. From the few songs that I did catch, Karen performed a cosy batch of songs with her voice and backing track of beats and layers of instruments. While the songs were great, and her voice is sweet and sultry, I couldn’t help but think about how good these songs would sound with an actual band behind her.
We then had Chelsea Wilson. While there were songs that I was familiar with from last week (which I expected), she glowed exuberance and fun on stage and danced around like there was a full house birthday party going on instead of seated, relaxed drinkers. It was really a pleasure to see Chelsea give her all on stage and I can’t understand why we don’t have more local talent like Chelsea signed to an Australian variant of Daptone records – or even Daptone Records themselves.
Despite travel issues care of a certain ash cloud, Sydney’s Michelle Martinez simply blew everyone off stage with her vocal range. Not only did she entertain through her stellar songs like ‘Gone Again’ and ‘Another You’, she interspersed all that with intriguing stories about just getting to the gig (she had to drive down because of the delays). While other more prissy entertainers would more than likely be grumpy and upset on stage, Michelle dealt with it in good humour, and sung like her heart was truly in her music.
The night truly was as soulful as you can get and it got me thinking on the way home about the great unhinged talent Chelsea has unfurled that Australian music audiences may not be aware of. Little discoveries like the Women of Soul night at The Toff augment that belief which I hope music fans latch onto more.
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