Another year and another Laura Colegate set
Another Guilfest and another set from Laura Colegate and, because it’s almost become part of the weekend for us, another R13 review. Some times she plays this festival with a backing band, others, like this year, it’s just her and a guitar. This solo performance does allow those watching to focus on her impressive voice, one of the reasons we keep coming back.
Again, as we found last year, the enjoyment of this set is slightly spoilt by the thud of music coming from elsewhere on the site, but that is really the only negative. She doesn’t appear to be the most confident of speakers when talking to those in the tent, however her singing more than makes up for this.
Of her own material, the laid-back ‘Light In Your Eyes’ is not only a highlight of this set, but of the weekend.
She closes her set with two covers, and is joined on stage by a bloke called Terry who does the honours with guitar playing. First up is Tom Petty classic ‘Free Falling’, followed by what was clearly a topical addition to the setlist of Michael Jackson’s ‘Man in the Mirror’.
Although the solo performance is perfectly enjoyable, with some of the material on her Myspace site featuring additional instruments, a personal preference would be to see this live, but that would be trying to review what wasn’t there, what was did very nicely thank you.