28 June 2004

Bic Runga at Norwich Arts Centre

Kiwi songstress Bic Runga is New Zealand's biggest selling artist
and she is now launching an assault on Britain. We sent Adrienne Frances along to her first UK headlining tour.

Bic Runga moved between playing her guitar and piano in Norwich.

Star rating: 3

A sterling support act set the sights high for Bic Runga's gig at Norwich Arts Centre.

Of all of the live music venues Norwich has to offer, the Arts Centre is by far my favourite.

It creates a sense of intimacy and intensity that is unlike other venues across the city. With this in mind, Bic Runga was a treat.

Pete Murray

Opening was Pete Murray, an Australian singer songwriter who has dominated both the single and album charts in his home country.

His album, Feeler, is nearly four times platinum in Australia and has only just been released and promoted over here.

Considering these credentials, his stage presence was humble and relaxed. He invited the audience to move closer to the stage and sit.

Surprisingly, the entranced crowd did exactly as he asked, and a mixture of 20 to 50-somethings were all sat cross-legged like in a school assembly.

His songs were understated acoustic guitar and vocal renditions of his album tracks.

Small gig

He revelled in the attentive environment, telling the audience that it was rare he played to less than 5,000 in Australia, so he felt honoured and lucky to be able to perform in such an intimate venue.

He was also pleased not to be ignored as so many warm-up acts are.

He enchanted the audience with such songs as Bail Me Out and So Beautiful (both singles) and also 10 Ft Tall.

He embellished this with background information on how the song was written about the relationship between two friends of his, one of whom unfortunately died of cancer.

He was chatty and engaging and an absolute treat.

Despite his home-grown fame, he informed the audience he would be mooching in the café bar area afterwards and would love for people to come up and chat to him.

David Mead

Following shortly afterwards was an American singer-songwriter, David Mead.

His set mostly featured songs from his third album release, Indiana and was different to Murray.

Where Murray created intimacy and emotion, Mead was more of a lyrical storyteller.

He plunged headfirst into his set and spoke little between tracks, but let his songs tell the stories.

He was accompanied by a cellist whose sound reverberated beautifully throughout the building, and made his songs perhaps more haunting than they might sound on CD.

While his performance was entertaining, there was something about him that I did not like.

Compared to Murray's humble chatty nature, Mead seemed arrogant and aloof.

I wondered if he felt smug that he was above Murray on the bill despite Murray's commercial fame.

I was also left wondering who decided the order of the bill, and why Murray was bottom.

Mead did redeem himself towards the end with an older track called Girl On The Roof which is also featured on the Van Wilder soundtrack.

It was lively and upbeat and far less serious than the other songs he has played. I felt he was more successful playing such songs, rather than becoming introspective and trying to be too clever lyrically.

Bic Runga

There was a longer wait between Mead and Bic Runga.

The gig was sold out, possibly due to many people missing the show back in January because of the terrible snow and yet the audience remained seated.

This only caused problems as there was simply not enough room for everyone if the main floor remained seated.

Nevertheless, few people moved or stood up and the atmosphere became hot and cramped.

Bic came on stage alone to play the first song, but was then joined by full backing band for the remainder of the show.

I felt disappointed at this because given the nature of the venue, I felt she would have been much more magical if she were acoustic and solo.

Her voice still managed to ring out around the church rafters and sounded as beautiful and delicate as on her albums Beautiful Collision and Drive but the band managed to dampen the sound by becoming muddy and overbearing.

At times the drums were louder than guitars, and I could not even make out the backing singers' melodies.

Despite this, songs such as When I See You Smile and Something Good were beautiful and a joy to hear, and Get Some Sleep was equally enjoyable.

This was an interesting gig for me because I went expecting to fall even more in love with Bic Runga, and left feeling slightly empty and unsatisfied.

It is not Bic that I left the venue thinking of, but Pete Murray who more than made up for my feelings of disappointment.

I think with the right airplay he might become as big here as he has in Australia, and if so, then I'll feel lucky to have been to such a small intimate show of his.

Bic Runga played the Norwich Arts Centre on 21 June 2004.