“You may notice that I’ve got a bad throat,” begins Sarah Cracknell, ominously. For the next couple of songs, she struggles to hit the higher notes and trades lines with a band member to save her voice. There are chuckles as she points towards her keyboard player’s convincingly Cracknell-like falsetto. Eventually, the situation calls for dangerous emergency measures and she produces a bottle of bourbon.
The singer is nothing if not a trooper. She seems to have hardly aged a day since first fronting Saint Etienne nearly 25 years ago; dressed in a transparent black lace number, Cracknell is every bit the chic blonde bombshell, even if nowadays she usually wears wellies. Her life in the Oxfordshire countryside has inspired her sublime second solo album, Red Kite: recorded in a barn, it shimmers with her trademark glitzy melancholy, but displays a new folkish, rustic charm.
The drink may make her so squiffy that she forgets the name of the next song – “Under the stars? Underneath the star? I’ve only had two sips!” – but it seems to have a medicinal effect, too. As she bravely performs the entire album, her voice gradually regains its gossamer-like quality.
Heartbreak pop stomper Hearts Are for Breaking and lovely Loose Salute cover The Mutineer are delivered perfectly, and if the beautifully fragile Favourite Chair has the odd wobble, it’s not for lack of effort, which is etched across her face.
As the crowd helps out by singing along to Saint Etienne’s Sylvie and Cracknell’s gorgeous Ready Or Not (from her first solo album, 1997’s Lipslide), it’s clear that the gig is a triumph. She exits, blowing kisses, with cheers ringing in her ears. It’s an inspiring example of the healing power of great songs, or perhaps of a remarkably fine whiskey.
• At City Varieties, Leeds, on 21 June. Tel 0113-243 0808.
- This review was amended on 22 June, 2015. The original referred to vocals from backing tapes when they were in fact provided by Cracknell’s keyboard player.
