Live Review: Alison Moyet

"Yes Vote" money-collecting vollies litter the entrance of Marriage Equality Arena tonight, staying true to Alison Moyet's promise during her interview with The Music: "I hope we fill the venue up with gayness".

The floor section is seated tonight and there's a spoken word intro in the darkness before Moyet and her two accompanists, John Garden and Sean McGhee, walk out on stage. Opener I Germinate, which features the appropriate lyrics, "I'm here," signals their arrival with aplomb. Moyet wears an elegant long-sleeved, ankle-length black dress with slight shimmer and demonstrates fierce, percussive dance moves. The emotion that pours forth through those flawless, husky pipes leaves us in bits. Moyet moves her setlist closer, blaming, "Old-lady eyesight" and reminds us she wrote Nobody's Diary when she was just 16 years old. A few rogue members of GA are up dancing, trademark '80s sidestepping. Moyet is quick to call out Margaret Court, saying it's unfortunate there are people like her "who make you feel bad about yourself". After telling us we're in for a selection of tunes spanning her 35-year musical career, Moyet says, "I'm hoping that you really love the new stuff best," before adding, "I tease, I tease you! This is something from I don't know when." She's hilariously blunt, but also thoughtful in her banter: "I, as a parent, have had to write thinking of my child and when I have to explain to them how cold the world can be, and how the thing is: when the world's really cold it's just ice and you can absolutely skate above it."   

Moyet observes that Only You is "probably the first thing you heard me sing on" and we all sing along with this minimal, electronic masterpiece. McGhee's backing vocals are glorious, his beautiful operatic timbre perfectly complementing Moyet's contralto. While Moyet talks, she singles out a talkative front-row punter, chastising, "I couldn't hear myself through the chatting", before admitting she realises she's "brutal". She goes on to share with us a memory of her late mother, who suffered from Alzheimer's and couldn't bear the sight of "the missing 'u'" (eg in the American spelling of color). The English U follows. After this song, Moyet apologises, "I've maligned you incorrectly and I do apologise," upon the realisation that the chatter she could hear was her own voice bouncing back not the aforementioned front-row punter.

A random bloke dances across a row down in GA then back to his seat in the front row, waving his arms in an attempt to get everyone on their feet. He then declares, "This is boring!" The crowd, "OOOoooh"s their disapproval, a dude hollers, "You're boring, fuckwit!" And then Moyet retorts, "Mate! Mate! Can I tell you something: the set's got shape, right? It goes to one place, it goes to another - eventually you get to dance. All you've gotta do is start with a little bit less beer, have a little bit of respect for the other people sitting here. Mate, if you wanna dance, dance up the back. Go dance at a disco!" Cue mad applause and then Moyet concludes, "D'you know what? Don't come and see an act if you've got no idea what they do, 'cause it's just gonna make you look like a twat." The crowd goes wild, showing their support.

All Cried Out is absolutely sublime. Moyet has a "mic change" as opposed to a costume change. Before another slower number, Moyet warns the dance enthusiast, "You might wanna get a drink at this point." He yells something out. A punter hollers, "Don't waste your time on him, Alison!" To which she responds, "I know, everyone tells me not to do that, but, you know, I'm a rucker! What can I tell ya? It's, like, I love a challenge and I fuckin' get in there!" Hilarity ensues. "It might take death before people realise this is a classic," is how Moyet introduces The Man In The Wings. We're already feeling raw and fragile thanks to Moyet's vocal, which wrings out our hearts, but then in comes This House and we fight back real tears - she effortlessly leaps octaves and we're speechless. Right As Rain, a dancier track, sees the heckler from earlier up and dancing along the front row trying to get everyone up and dancing once more. He dances down the aisle and across another row before security close in on him.

"Margaret Court, if she believes god is the great architect then why is she saying that he's failed? So, that's my take on it," Moyet declares, referring to herself as "an old matriarch" before presenting her "coming out song", The Rarest Of Birds. Moyet's awesome dance moves during Is This Love? take us back to the '80s. "Now we're gonna disco like it's 1982," Moyet enthuses. Most of GA are now on their feet.

Moyet tells us she'll perform a three-song encore so we know what we're getting and can clap as we walk toward the exits if we so desire. She observes, "I tell you what, you can take the girl outta Basildon..." of her earlier verbal tussles. Punters yell out requests. "Beautiful Gun? The thing is, we were gonna do it, but I don't know whether it's the right time, really, for it at the moment, d'you know what I mean? I can't chat, 'cause I've got a job to do... so, you're gonna get the three that I've already planned." Yazoo's Don't Go is our closer and the dance moves get dusted off as we gyrate along to this debilitating classic. Moyet is an absolute star and well worth the 30-year wait. They just don't breed 'em like that anymore.   

As we wander through the foyer we notice someone has improved the Margaret Court artwork by attaching a "Vote Yes For Equality" poster across the sculpture's arm. We smile, take a photo of it and know that Moyet would approve.