For my last concert of the year I finished off with a small intimate gig, perhaps the smallest I have been to yet. Which is never a downside, I am a huge fan of small gigs.
Rising Spanish, but Irish residing, pop star Elle Coves is just coming off the back of her first EP “Selfishly Inclined” released earlier this year, an EP with upbeat catchy pop hooks and some somber and sweet songs of love and of heartbreak.
The concert ran in the basement of the Academy, in their smaller venue The Academy 2, which was a surprisingly well made and pleasant venue.
Elle opened her show with a personally favourite of mine “Born to Lose”, a great upbeat pop song with an insanely catchy chorus that gets imbedded deep in your mind upon any listening of it.
She continued with the majority of her released catalogue, as she has not released much as of yet in comparison to more established artists, but don’t underestimate the power of that back catalog of songs she has.
Her cover of “You’re so Vain” was a surprise to be sure, but a welcome one. A classic song which she breathed new life into with her own unique voice.
Her performance of her song “Don’t” stands out to me as a highlight of the concert, a beautiful song lyrically, and with very challenging notes to hit in the chorus, she delivered it immaculately, as if it was ripped straight from the EP. For the beginning of her song she even did it purely acoustic, no amplifiers or microphones, which worked perfectly with the venue, everyone being as quiet as they could and her unamplified voice filling the room.
Stage Setup: 7/10, for what little stage room they had to work with, they made it very homely and endearing, with string lights hung up around the stage atop red curtains gave it an intimate and cosy feeling.
Support: 8/10, Niamh McCrystal provided the support, treating us to a decent amount of unreleased music, with great lyricism and singing ability.
Merchandise: 6/10, the only merchandise available after the show was posters, which normally would fetch a rather low rating, but Elle herself was at the merch stall signing each one, taking pictures and even signing the posters with a personal touch, asking for everyone’s name to write her message to.
Crowd: 7/10, a very inactive crowd but that was mostly due to the immersion of the music, everyone was enthralled by the performance and seemed elated to be there.
Artist Performance: 9/10, Elle has the voice to fill arenas twenty times the size of this small venue, and in time I’m sure she will be filling venues much, much bigger.
Overall: 8/10, a lively and lovely intimate gig, delivered by an incredibly up and coming artist, she’s one to watch, she’ll be filling the 3arena before we know it.
Up Next: ATEEZ, AO Arena Manchester, 30/01/2025
Jays Concert Blog 