Lily Allen + Fryars + Lolawolf @ O2 Academy, 26th November 2014
It’s been 8 years since Lily Allen burst onto the scene with her debut album “Alright, Still” and after being away from the limelight for the latter half of those years to concentrate on family life and fashion, she returns to Birmingham for her Sheezus tour.
Despite the tickets being over thirty pounds each tonight, the queues around the block were a sign that this was going to be a packed out gig and the throughly mixed crowd seemed to be looking forward to it.
The first special guests here to support tonight was Lolawolf, a trio headed up by Zoe Kravitz, the daughter of the legend that is Lenny Kravitz. They put on a great show with their deep bass and synth sound which the waiting crowd looked like they enjoyed. Next up was the second support act, Fryars, aka Benjamin Garrett which was all about one man and his keyboard. I really liked his warn and mellow sound but think maybe he should have been on before Lolawolf’s darker, more atmospheric set.
Next up was the reason that most people were here tonight. Lily arrived onstage surrounded by neon glowing baby bottles which lit up the hoody wearing band all evening and kicked off proceedings with her third album and tour title track.
This was followed by a mix of material from her three albums. She looked to be genuinely pleased to be here tonight and was clearly enjoying herself up there and her audience could tell, which made for a great atmosphere.
Everyone seemed to really enjoy Lily’s comedic and brutally honest lyrics and tracks such as “URL Badman” and her cover of Keane’s “Somewhere Only We Know” from last year’s John Lewis Christmas ad went down well but the crowd really came alive for the older material from her debut album.
The high point for me had to be “Fuck You” a song written by Allen about former US president George W Bush. She pulled a fan from the crowd up on stage to sing the not too complicated lyrics with her, and the room turned into a sea of people bouncing up and down with both middle fingers up in the air and at this point it just felt like one big party..
Lily Allen is a bit marmite for a lot of people and she may not be in the leagues of Adele and the like when it comes to vocal performances, but tonight she showed us that she knows how to put on a show and make a crowd feel part of it and I for one enjoyed it a hell of a lot more than I thought I would, and for that I thank you Mrs Allen.
Photographs and Review: John Dent