Regina Spektor
Rating: 
Venue: Sheffield Leadmill
Date: 20/02/07
The ‘ooh-isn’t-she-quirky-let’s-sing-along-like-we’re-at-an-Oasis-gig’ brigade was out in irritating force at the Leadmill. In contrast to Regina Spektor’s last tour, the atmosphere was one of raucous adulation rather than hushed reverence, which detracted somewhat from Spektor’s performance. Nonetheless, she remains an arresting and magnetic performer, albeit one with an adoring and easily satisfied audience. For the most part, the Leadmill audience would have been satisfied to watch her beat a chair with a stick, as she in fact did on occasion.
Endearingly, she was more than happy to put the show on hold to help look for the batteries from a camera which an audience member had just dropped over the barrier, especially since she had just asked everyone to stop using their flashes. In some sense, this gig was an emphatic denial of what many had feared since the release of her new album, Begin To Hope, that Regina had become an obliging major label moppet, with a more smoothed-out, palatable sound.
There were certainly enough old songs here, sung with all the old whoops, ‘a-ooh-a’s and pseudo-orgasmic ‘Regin-AH!’s, to satisfy the old fans. However, there was also a more ominous suggestion of how things might look in the future. Half way through the gig, Regina was joined by a fairly superfluous (and bored-looking) band, who only served to squeeze some of the individuality out of her songs. Their technically proficient but uninspired playing added nothing but superfluous noise to the songs, and masked her usual vocal acrobatics.
Despite her three-man hindrance, Regina still held the audience in the palm of her hand, reprising ‘Sailor Song’ and others. After an encore comprising the expansive beauty of ‘Us’, in which Regina’s true vocal range was allowed to ring out, she finished with ‘Love, You’re A Whore’, weirdly sounding like an alt.folk Loretta Lynn; a combination that makes a lot
