Kate Jackson – black T-shirt, black pencil skirt, black eyeliner – still looks every inch the superstar she always did.
A decade has passed since the now 36-year-old was the unofficial queen of English alt-pop. As singer with Sheffield’s much heralded Long Blondes – one magnificent debut album, one average follow-up and out – she was essentially the Debbie Harry of mid-noughties indie: all neckerchiefs, heel kicks and quotes about Bonnie and Clyde. No British person has ever looked better in a beret, except perhaps Frank Spencer.
This evening, that X factor is still intact. Jackson, now supported by backing group the Wrong Moves, remains a strutting, sashaying stage presence. Her magnetism is such that she receives delighted cheers for simply noting one song is about going for a walk.
The even better news is that, after five years away, she still knows her way around a stomping, shimmering pop gem. Debut solo album, British Road Movies, is, Jackson explains early doors, about “driving on the M1, the M25, the A18, flyovers and services”. Yet, if the UK’s transport infrastructure seems unpromising source material for dancefloor-fillers what follows is 45 minutes during which the concrete of motorways and urban sprawl has never sounded so colourful, so compelling, so ripe with possibility. Homeward Bound is Suede (Bernard Butler is a longtime collaborator) distilled through Karen O cool, while Wonder Feeling – a Pulp-esque bouncer – might be the best song ever written in which the singer declares: “I’m in love with railway stations.”
The conclusion writes itself: if these are songs that soundtrack journeys, this is a most welcome return.
• Kate Jackson and the Wrong Moves play Tramlines festival, Sheffield, on 23 July.
