Lisa O’Neill is one of the most striking folk singers performing today, although her journey to this point has had unconventional detours. David Gray saw a clip of her online in 2011, and begged her to support him on a huge US tour. Her earlier albums’ cover art suggests indie pixie-girl leanings. She’s anything but, and now signed to a subsidiary of indie titans Rough Trade.
Tonight, O’Neill is both girl next door and charismatic stage presence, her hands square on her hips as she begins with the old Irish song, The Galway Shawl. Telling us of a man who buckles completely before a woman’s voice and her beauty, O’Neill has a way of getting us into her characters’ heads instantly. Her voice, occasionally challenging on record, is transporting live: imagine Edith Piaf coming from the Irish border counties, brilliantly stomping her boots.
Her compelling originals stuff the set list tonight. England Has My Man (2015) comes over as a sweetly sulky paean to a lost love. (“I’ve learned some songs last longer than relationships,” O’Neil hams; she’s quick, warm and funny between songs.) Pothole in the Sky traces a skydive she did (“a near-death experience, really”) in some beautiful, mystical phrases. “There were angels in the engines,” she sings, eerily, “a factory of light.”
Politics also play a big part in her songs. There’s Violet Gibson, about the Irish woman who nearly assassinated Mussolini in 1926. (Bravely, the song doesn’t flinch from exploring her madness.) Rock the Machine, written from the perspective of a young docker losing his job to mechanisation, also hits hard. “I miss the graft / I miss the boys,” O’Neill sings, again perfectly channelling her man.
Her band support her beautifully (Christophe Capewell playing subtle shades on violin, Mic Geraghty on harmonium). But there are also some curveballs that show O’Neill’s variety: an impish take on Ivor Cutler’s Squeeze Bees, a rage through Nina Simone’s Four Women, and an incredible encore choice, the jazz standard Blue Moon. O’Neill lets her wild loveliness rip as she plays this in particular. It’s perfect. Long may she bluster and bloom.
