Sharon Van Etten + Marisa Anderson – Brudenell Social Club, Leeds – 20th May 2012

I love seeing a band with no pre-conceptions – Lee and I went to this gig on spec knowing nothing about Sharon at all. In the Brudenell we bumped into Lee’s colleague Dave and his pals from Ilkley. We got chatting about our kids “What’s your eldest daughters name?” “Marisa” “I’ve not heard that name before”…..then on comes the support “Hi my names Marisa Anderson” Dave turns to us with raised eyebrows “That’s the second time I’ve heard that name tonight!”

Marisa played an intense, instumental solo set that made great use of a slide guitar – you often hear it with sustained high notes in country tunes but she gets dirty blues sounding basslines a plenty from it. A great set.

Sharon Van Etten has a great voice but seemed to be a bit nervous at first. Her band belted out a couple of rock tunes and I wasn’t sure if I was going to enjoy the gig…..but her banter between songs (she’s from the town in New Jersey where the Sopranos is filmed, it was her boyfriend birthday) was so funny (sometimes unintentionally) and the music soon got more to my liking with some fantastic guitar work on sprawling epic songs. Her songs sound confessional in nature and if they are, she’s had a lot of heartache.

We bought her ‘Tramp’ CD on the way out but my favourite song of the night isn’t on it – it was a song for strong women called “Life of his own” that went along the lines of “I want a man with a good social life and friends of his own that he see’s without me, cos that’s what I’ve got and I ain’t giving it up” – Gonna find a copy for my Marisa!

Bob the Chiropodist