BRITs Week holds a special place in the musical calendar. The annual series of live gigs gives fans the opportunity to engage with some remarkable talents in rather less-than-typical venue sizes. Just last year, all-female it-band The Last Dinner Party played to a tightknit crowd in Hebden Bridges’ 200-capacity Trades Club venue; the year before, The 1975 condensed their theatrical live set into the 550-capacity Gorilla venue in Manchester.
These one-off shows hold a far larger purpose than their crowd sizes suggest, though, with all proceeds going to War Child. Whilst cynics might be quick to cast judgment on the performative element of a charitable tie-in, the £7.4 million BRITs Week has raised since its inception in 2009, to help children in ever-worsening global conflict, isn’t to be sniffed at. In fact, it’s rather impressive.
For Joy Crookes, playing this year’s BRITs Week at Islington Assembly Hall – its two-tiered, 890-capacity making it one of the larger venues playing host in the series – was clearly a chance for the South London songstress to play her part in this worthy cause. It also proved an opportunity to revive her live set, having admittedly not performed in a while, and flex some new material – not least forthcoming track ‘Forever’, which she dedicated to the plight of children in conflict.
Three years is a long time in music, and it’s been almost three-and-a-half since the release of Crookes’ first and only album to date: the Mercury Prize-nominated Skin. Yet for someone with not just the vocal talents of Crookes, but the poise and grace too, she’s an act you simply can’t rush.
From the get-go, this wasn’t a set of extravagant showmanship, but of controlled precision, as she moved the mic away from her bellowing vocals on her wailing opening number. Though her relatable lyricism is placed entirely in the present day, conjuring images of love in London and modern-day anxieties, her performance feels like a throwback – we could quite easily be in a dimly-lit jazz bar, with Crookes resembling shades of Winehouse.
‘Pass The Salt’, which dropped at the turn of the year and features US rapper Vince Staples on record, demonstrated the jazzy bite she can weave into her work, whilst subsequent track ‘Feet Don’t Fail Me Now’ – by far her most-streamed track to date – displayed the grandeur of her vocals, as she hit the highs with ease.
After the rolling buoyancy of ‘Trouble’, we were introduced to two new tracks, taken from Crookes’ forthcoming sophomore album, which she told us in an endearingly haphazard way would arrive this year. The first, ‘Perfect Crime’ – a track she wrote a while ago, but Crookes vowed was new – represents a slightly poppier string to her bow. The second, about a fictionalised character called Carmen, who symbolises unrealistic beauty standards, sees the singer return to her neo-soul best.
There’s a certain irony in someone with the elegance of Crookes breezing through a song about failing to meet people’s expectations. But even the most glamorous can be plagued with self-criticism, and a recent Instagram post from Crookes – in which she put the delay to new music down to the fact that “life was kicking my ass” – suggests the singer hasn’t had the easiest time of late.
Forthcoming track ‘Somebody Like You’, which Crookes introduced by comparing her experiences of anxiety to Uma Thurman’s adrenaline shot in Pulp Fiction, continued this diaristic openness; a theme first established by support act Amie Blu, whose soulful, alternative RnB likewise proved a fitting sonic opener for Crookes.
“I’m such a massive fan of Joy Crookes,” Amie had blushed midway through her set earlier in the night. And as we later swayed to Skin anthem ‘When We Were Mine’ to wrap-up Crookes’ set – a track with a lyrical specificity and Ezra Collective-esque spirit that drips with nostalgia – it was hard for views to differ.
Indeed, her sophomore album might take more than three years to arrive, but in this relatively intimate setting, Joy Crookes showed she’s making her return in ravishing style.
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