Darling of the Ibiza club residency scene and bonafide dance music Queen Becky Hill’s first headline arena tour. Can she fill these vast venues in her own right and at the kind of prices you pay for the big venue gigs? You bet your backside she can.
Last night in Birmingham was the sixth gig of a nine-date UK tour – opening in Glasgow, then Newcastle, Nottingham, Leeds, Exeter, and after her “home town” show in Brum, it’s Manchester Sunday night, Cardiff on Tuesday next week and closing at London’s OVO Arena, Wembley on Thursday.
The Utilita was absolutely rammed wall-to-wall at this 14,000 capacity arena, all-standing.
Kicking off backed by a drummer and three backing singers – sparse stage and no dancers or fancy production frills. Later the band strike up. Becky taking to the small ‘B stage’ in the middle of the arena for two slower songs in the middle of the 26-song set, accompanied by a female pianist. Great moment for the iPhones for pix and video.
Becky was a tad over two weeks early for Bonfire night, but she rocked up to Brum with a box full of bangers in her circa 95 minute sparkling “homecoming” gig, a stone’s throw from Bewdley in Worcestershire where Becky was born.
Family and friends in the house to catch up with their very own superstar, and Becky saying how special Birmingham, shows always were for her.
Coming three days since One Direction star Liam Payne died after a fall from a balcony at his hotel in Argentina, Becky Hill paused her show to pay tribute to Liam who was born and brought up down the road in Wolverhampton. You could have heard a pin drop as she called the event a tragedy and issued the emotional phrase: “Rest in peace Liam Payne”.
During the gig she also referenced the cost of living crisis and people needing to use food banks, and how grateful she was for her fans for spending “hard-earned money” to buy tickets for her shows.
Other than those two sincere and emotional moments, the rest of the night was jam packed with fun and infectious music to shake your booty to, and it was all about having a damn good sing song and a great Saturday night “out out.”
It was also a showcase for how flippin’ great 30-year-old Rebecca Claire “Becky” Hill’s voice is. Love that gravelly growl in the back of her throat and the raspy delivery, and that natural vibrato she has.
She can belt it out pitch perfect, and she can pull right back and retain control and send shivers down your spine. A really talented singer who knows her instrument and what she can do with it.
Deffo one of the best singers from the UK for the last decade or more and most certainly in the Top few “best ever” singers to come from TV talent shows – Becky hitting our screens in the very first series of The Voice a dozen years ago on team Jessie J and reaching the semi-final.
Setlist
True Colours
Gecko (Overdrive)
Last Time
Crazy What Love Can Do
Piece of Me
False Alarm
Back and Forth
Outside of Love
Lonely Again
Afterglow
Disconnect
Man of My Dreams
I Could Get Used to This
One Track Mind
Keep Holding On
Back Around
Lost The Plot
Indestructible
Right Here
Never Be Alone
Darkest Hour
Lose Control
My Heart Goes (La Di La)
Swim
Wish You Well
Remember
She blew the judges away and wowed us TV viewers at the age of 18, with her amazing rendition of the will.i.am and John Legend-penned “Ordinary People” in her first televised audition.
Since then, she rocketed to fame as featured vocalist with a slew of top names, two BRIT awards, 18 top 40 singles and notching up a few billion, yes billion, streams of her tracks. Plus two hit albums. In June 2014 Becky became the first former contestant of The Voice UK to top the UK chart score, with “Gecko (Overdrive)” – with Oliver Heldens.
She told the fans she knew they were there for the bangers and she dished them all out in fine style. The majority of the set was at a pace and upping the BPM, but there was light and shade with a brief pause of the stuff to bop to, when she took to the small “B stage” in the middle of the arena mid-set to sing a brace of slower songs, “Man Of My Dreams” and “I Could get Used To This”. Superb vocals too.
Plenty of material from her current album, “Believe Me Now?”, her second album which peaked at # three in the UK chart and featured the hit singles “Disconnect” with drum and bass heroes Chase & Status, “Never Be Alone” with Sonny Fodera and “Side Effects” with Lewis Thompson.
The set kicks off with “True Colours” the opener of her current LP, and then the biggie, “Gecko (Overdrive)” which was her first hit, a collaboration with Oliver Heldens – band in the first chunk of the set she hits the bullseye with the smash hits “Crazy What Love Can Do”, “Last Time” and the MK, Jonas Blue and Becky Hill collab’ “Piece of Me”.
Absolute earworm “My Heart Goes (La Di La)” pops up four from the end, which I am still humming, whistling and singing out loud the next day!
We get all the classics, all the solo hits and the smash hits which she was featured singer on – even new track, “Lost The Plot” – a song looking at the pressure and struggles an artist goes through in the music business – which is unreleased so far. Some 10 songs in to the set, “Afterglow” was magnificent, the Wilkinson cover. To be honest, there wasn’t one song or performance of the 26 strong set list which wasn’t bang on point.
The second MK collaboration track, “Back & Forth” went down well. “The finale of “Wish You Well”, for me a cracking bit of song writing, and “Remember” triggered the confetti and the lasers to close the party and send the very happy 14,000 of us off into the misty cold night still buzzing from a ******* brilliant night out out.
I’ve seen Ms Hill headline huge festival stages to many thousands more than were at this gig, and she has always been in her element; her voice, her stage presence and her choreography have always been well on-point. She grins like a Cheshire cat and you can tell she is a pig in **** when she is on any stage.
She has always looked relaxed and totally at home on those big stages. But in some reviews of this tour, some have noted that she seems “awkward” and seemingly still learning how to fill the big spaces of an arena with her clubbing style of dance music.
Poppycock, balderdash and hogwash say I, borrowing three old fashioned and rarely-used words to poo-poo those who think that.
It’s utter cobblers. She is a star, her star still on the ascent, 100% deserving of her first arena tour – and it will not be her last.
Totally content in her own skin and well and truly at the top of her game – and all aspects of it – on this arena stage in the West Midlands last night. Just ask 13,999 others who were there ‘with me.’ They WILL surely concur. Awkward my arse…
- Support acts were DJ Charlie Boon from Cornwall and London singer-songwriter Catching Cairo aka Meron T (she).
Photos by Jason Sheldon
Words by Bobbi Daniels
