Photo: Justin Edwards

In a venue with no seating other than that to be found on the floor, it’s hoped that the live acts are good enough to not only entertain, but also to distract listener’s from the creeping numbness spreading through their arses. Thankfully, all three performers give it their all.

Scott Spark kicks off the evening, seated behind his Wurlitzer with a practiced ease that just barely masks a clenched nervousness. Over the course of the show, this gives way to laidback charm as he plays through most tracks from his recent EP Wet Behind the Ears. He is joined by Roger González on miscellaneous percussion from standout track Something’s In the Water onwards, and it is here that Spark settles into himself, his jerks and writhing while playing looking more like a child excited at Christmas rather than one terrified in a dentist’s chair.

Petite Tara Simmons doesn’t take long to settle, her early shoe-gazing giving way to sassy cheek. Opener Everybody Loves You draws the audience in with its elegant, unabashed sweetness, setting the tone of the set. Seated behind a keyboard and backed by dual cellos, a double bass, drum kit and her laptop, her sound is odd enough to notice, but not to distract. And just when I think I have Miss Simmons pegged as ‘that cutesy alt-pop girl’, she turns around and tears out some soaring, intimate vocals and forces me to reassess just how versatile she really is.

Final performer Emma Dean struts her stuff with the confidence of a (by-comparison) seasoned veteran. Backed by standard guitar-bass-drums, Dean takes the audience through her impressive catalogue, with the disarming Dresden Dolls-y Three Meals spindly creeping towards a crescendo. Impressive throughout, both in professionalism and performance, it isn’t until Miss Dean, dressed in a sparkling gown, begins wielding an electric violin that I properly fall in love. Her rockin’ poppin’ Good Song closes out the night – or at least it would have, had an encore not been immediately and enthusiastically demanded.

SEBASTIAN HAYES

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