Everywhere I look, it seems, there is a photograph of Beth Jeans
Houghton's painted breasts. Last year, it was in her trippy video for "I Will Return, I Promise" and recently those two perky dulux-smeared orbs popped up on the cover of Clash magazine in WH Smiths.
The girl appears to thrive on coloured boobs and big wigs. It's actually the fourth time I've seen her play in the last six months and she manages a new hairpeace each time - and so tonight it's an amorphous blob of nylon peroxide that looks like something Babs Windsor chucked on in the Queen Vic.
This show's being put on by the "Twisted Folk" chaps - in the past they've paired up Vetiver with Micah P Hinson, Jeffrey Lewis with William Eliot and, rather wonderfully, King Creoste with Jose Gonzalez. Houghton's tour mates for this jaunt are the hotly tipped Stornoway. It is, perhaps, a less suprising combination than previous paritings, which is a shame, as both bands would benefit from having someone a touch more daring alongside them.
Stornoway don't disappoint - they're tight and sound as full as one might expect in such a venue. Inevitable comparisons with Mumford and Sons are muttered from more than a few punters on the way out. While they share an aesthetic and mere genre-nod, there's much more going on and they're certainly less commercial than the Mumford Boys, if a little perfunctory at times. Houghton is her usual affable self - still larger and more interesting a figure than her songs but showing real progress in her confidence as a performer.
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The limitations of the venue hamper the show somewhat - it's too
bright, too plastic, too soulless to really make the music come alive. "I feel really exposed," says Houghton as she comes onstage and the audience appear to feel the same way too. The show suffers from feeling less like a gig and more like a tv performance - fine songs, perfect performance, dull night, unfortunately.
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