But before we indulged ourselves in Kal's music we had a great introduction to the nights music by way of Katie O'Malley. See with a name like that there has to be an Irish connection somewhere but as it happens as soon as Katie introduced the first song it was clear that although there may be relatives and family history that goes back to Ireland Katie is firmly rooted in Rochdale... As Katie finger picked her way through the first song it was easy to hear why people around the Manchester area love listening to her self penned tunes. A gentle melody lies beneath a unique voice that has a really interesting gentle rasp. It really is a lovely sound that Katie has and once heard you will never forget that soulful voice....
Katie O'Malley Live At The Shop Sessions
Now we've seen Kal Lavelle a few times since her first performance at the Shop Sessions in August 2014 and what never fails to grab me is the way Kal connects with an audience pretty much immediately and this night was no different. Straight away Kal was joking with the audience about losing her beer behind the Shop Sessions banner and then explaining what Slainte (there's supposed to be an accent mark above the a) means to people like me that didn't know. So 'Cheers' er I mean 'Slainte'. Kal started the set with the very beautiful sounding 'Blue Lagoon' which Kal described as the first song she had written that 'wasn't shit'. I don't know how many songs it took to get to Blue Lagoon when Kal started song-writing but what a lovely tune this is. The pace picked up with the foot tappingly ace song 'Kate' which we found out won Kal a song-writing competition at Uni leading to the purchase of the guitar she was playing this very night. So we were already enraptured by the performance so far and then one of the highlights for me was 'Gypsy Blood' my personal favourite track from the 'Shivers' EP. So not only was Kal going to sing probably my fav Kal Lavelle track but she invited up another Shop Sessions favourite Little Rach to help out with the harmonies and it was simply sublime, two superb artists stood a few feet away creating musical magic.
Kal Lavelle -Blue Lagoon
Kal is so connected to the songs and you can hear it as she emotes as well as sings, you feel the sorrow, the passion, the angst and the elation as she delivers each song with feeling and an honesty that can quite often be missing from an artists live performance especially if they've been playing the songs for a while. It was great to hear Kal play some new songs, in some cases still being written but all sounding like the new Kal Lavelle recordings are going to be all kinds of wonderful. Everyone really enjoyed joining in with Berlin one of Kal's new tunes and another indication that Kal is just going to keep going from strength to strength. It was easy to pick Charlotte's favourite for the video this month as soon as Kal announced she would play 'Breakfast At Tiffany's' the last track off the 'Shivers' EP Charlotte loves this track and you can check it out below to see why...
Charlotte's Pick - Kal Lavelle - Breakfast At Tiffany's
Kal was absolutely brilliant again at the Shop Sessions and as proof to that when Kal offered up a choice of two songs to do as the encore the audience insisted on both and not being one to disappoint Kal obliged with excellent performances of 'Sing' and Gnarls Barkley's 'Crazy'.
A special mention goes out to the very very awesome and always welcome Little Rach who did an impromptu performance of 'If You Go' at Kal's request and it was amazing. We can't wait to see Little Rach back out on the road and recording.
A special mention goes out to the very very awesome and always welcome Little Rach who did an impromptu performance of 'If You Go' at Kal's request and it was amazing. We can't wait to see Little Rach back out on the road and recording.
There is no doubt in our minds you should go grab the Shivers EP and find out where Kal may be playing live by checking out the links below you will be glad you did...
For everything Katie O'Malley head to
Go checkout the awesome Kal Lavelle here..
Kal Lavelle also runs some of the best live music events in London and you can find out about the
We Love Shows events here.
To find out who is coming up next at The Shop Sessions...
