Union Chapel, LondonThe soul-jazz star’s sold-out performance is unabashedly mainstream, but has real emotional heft
As the live
music industry cautiously dusts itself off, north London’s Union Chapel is in the lucky position of being made for social distancing: its airy stalls and domed ceiling offer the closest thing to an outdoor experience you’ll find at an indoor venue. Celeste, on the other hand, is an indoor artist, excelling in spaces small enough to preserve her fragility and unease.
As such, the cavernous chapel isn’t the soul-jazz singer’s natural home, but here she is anyway, presiding over five sold-out nights. It feels a considerable step outside her comfort zone. The first words of tonight’s opening song, Ideal Woman, might transmit bumptious confidence – “I like to think it’s because I’m too proud? Too proud, too proud, too loud / Some others may say it’s because I’m so tall / But that doesn’t bother me at all” – but it’s the little things that tell. When she briefly speaks to announce song titles or admit she has stage fright, her voice is tiny; when she moves to the music, it’s from the waist up, feet seemingly glued to the stage. And for every girl-boss Ideal Woman in the setlist, there are two that fret and gnaw their cuticles. (A quivering Father’s Son, which pointedly addresses absent fathers, needs a shout-out here.)