Reviewed by Adam Piotrowski
Photographed by Kevin Gaughan
Another Saturday night and another surprisingly quality show on offer in Leicester’s music scene. This time round it was the Miki Berenyi Trio at Duffy’s, one of their two warm-up shows in the UK before the head to the States for 15 show tour, where they will traverse from the East to the West Coast with a couple of Canada shows peppered in for good measure.
As this is to be their first and last proper US tour – Miki citing increasing costs of touring for mid-sized bands – they have promised plenty of songs from the band that made her semi-famous, Lush. The set was comprised of 17 songs and we did hear a few choice Lush tunes such as Ladykiller (big sing-along to this one), For Love (bass driven, reminiscent of The Cure), Stray, Light from a Dead Star and Leaves Me Cold. These songs had a particularly enthusiastic response from the surprisingly packed Duffy’s.
Most of the setlist was composed of Miki Berenyi Trio’s songs, including every song from the Tripla LP, which came out in April, and here there was something a bit fresher and more compelling going on. These were songs which they had been practising together, but as is often the case, the magic comes when the act is still being polished, when there is still a sense of uncertainty and perhaps a little bit of doubt. But the trio were tight and confidently moving through the spacey tunes. We had the pleasure of watching them finesse these songs.
They opened the show with a spot-on live debut of the 6-minute-plus Doldrum Days, the song building to a final chorus where the bassist sang lead, making way for Miki’s falsetto to take the melodic lead. The songs over time became nearly indistinguishable; while they seemed to start with a varied selection of drumbeat/backing tracks – one quite funky, one quite Latin-salsa sounding – once the guitar and vocals came in, they seemed to blend into one mid-tempo soundscape. This had a hypnotic effect, with big sweeping songs rarely making significant changes partway through, begging a consistent head nod throughout. As a drummer, I would love to see a Miki Berenyi quartet with some moody, noisy, jazzy drums to fill out the live sound, but I imagine that would probably deter from the intimate feel of the band.
Despite Miki’s 30-plus years in the industry, the performance seemed to suggest her reluctance as a singer. Instead of the vocals being front and centre, they were mixed quite evenly with the instruments, making it difficult to make out specific lyrics and interpret the meaning of the songs. While the between-song banter was funny and entertaining, when she sang with eyes closed, the high register of her vocals didn’t seem to cut through meaningfully; instead, it was itself another sound in the aura. Even so, the trio delivered a captivating and atmospheric set, the room more than engaged and happy to be along for the ride.
Shoutout to local gent Kevin Hewitt, who humbly lost himself in a concise solo acoustic set to open the evening. In one song the cyclical repetition of the lyric ‘losing you and finding you’ never seemed to get old, but kept drawing the audience further into the feeling. The vocals throughout were fluid and his efforts to genuinely communicate feeling were fruitful.
When wrapping up his set he warned us that his spontaneous choice for a closer was foolhardy as it wasn’t something that he had prepared. Save it for tomorrow, which he had co-written with his friend Libby, was much more tolerable than he led us to believe it would be, and he lived up to the good words that everyone seemed to be saying about him prior to the show, as I gather, he has been playing around Leicester for quite some time.
While Kevin played his set, Miki watched gracefully from the audience. There is no backstage at Duffy’s and when he finished, she came up to help him off stage as he seemed to have been suffering from a minor injury – not enough to keep him from playing. Such was the feeling of camaraderie, non-judgement and good vibes in the venue all evening.