In the past few days I have seen two favorite female singers - one can cut it live, the other is showing signs of concern.

On Thursday Owen & I went to St. James Church, Piccadilly to see Beth Rowley. Now it's an impressive building in a COE way, but despite it's popularity as a music venue it kinda blows. It's first-come-first-served so if you were in the pews facing the stage - oh alright altar - you were ok. We got there about 30 minutes after the doors opened and had to make recourse to the - um.. dress circle. The seats that ran down the side were awful unless you were in the front row and could lean forward - even standing up you could only see a bit of the stage... altar. Luckily Owen managed to find a tiny mini-pew behind the two pews facing the stageltar down the length of the aisle. After two dreary folky support acts came and went it was time for Beth and I must admit to being a bit underwhelmed. It was the third time I have seen her and she seemed ill-at-ease and unsure during her whole set. She was roadtesting new material which sounded ok but she was so listless on stage I really felt uncomfortable watching her. She mentioned that she was getting over a cold but even so.. there is such a thing as Doctor Theatre - even if it's in a church! She also had a mild kvetch that she wasn't used to playing to an audience that remained seated and her oddly-paced set was curtailed by the fact that the church had a curfew - so why pick the bloody place as a venue? She played a good selection from her LITTLE DREAMER cd which are always good to hear but I left feeling that maybe I should give her the go-by next time.

However all was put right with the world on Saturday when we saw the glorious Linda Lewis at the Jazz Cafe. I was a bit of a fan during her 70s heyday but have only seen her in little guest slots in bigger shows so I was a bit excited sitting in the mezzanine looking directly onto the centre of the stage. She made a dazzling entrance in a multi-coloured silk fringed affair and black dress and she was totally entrancing.

She sang songs from her lengthy career - she started her solo career in 1970! Her material is hard to define as it crosses so many genres - which I guess is why she has never achieved the longterm chart success she deserves but all her songs have a gentle, humorous, loving quality which makes her an artist that it's a joy to see. Her great 'cheeky eastender' personality was also much in evidence, joking and laughing with the audience and her band.

Her backing band were great and none other than Sylvia Mason-James was on backing vocals - I nearly fell off my chair when Linda announced who the aloof-looking singer with the bejewelled flat shoes was - it was nice to see Sylvia with someone other than the Pet Shop Boys. There was also a great middle-section with just Linda and her acoustic guitar.

My favorites of the set were ROCK-A-DOODLE-DOO (of course), REMEMBER THE DAYS OF THE SCHOOL YARD, BABY I'M YOURS (yaaaay!), IT'S IN HIS KISS (eeek!), REACH FOR THE TRUTH, SIDEWAY SHUFFLE ("Ooo I nearly lost my bra shaking like that") and I KEEP A WISH. Speaking of which, when we got there I saw a cd lying a bit further up the table which on further investigation was a signed copy of the single of ...WISH - so that was a great bonus! Linda is hoping to have an album of new material out early next year so it would be great to see her again - and then I will definately not be shy about shouting out for THE MOON AND I when she asks for requests!