Emmy The Great – Uncut Arena, Latitude Festival, 18 July 2009

Joy Thomas wants her money back

If you’re going to call yourself Emmy The Great you really have to pull the stops out and make sure you live up to your (self-imposed) moniker. But, oh, at Latitude Festival this favourite singer of mine struggled to be Emmy the Quite Good (admittedly, not quite as catchy).

Emmy followed an absolutely stonking set from Mika (and I don’t even like Mika) whose tunes had an overflowing Uncut Arena dancing and sweating and whooping and generally In A Bit Of A State. Mika had ruled the roost and even had me smiling and tapping my foot as I watched young and old shimmy and jive in a big blue tent in the afternoon.

Yes, it was a difficult act to follow. But so many of us had wriggled to the front of the tent and waited patiently in anticipation of what was to come. Which meant it was terribly deflating when we whooped and cheered Emmy onto stage and the first thing she said was “Are you lot left over from Mika?” Never mind, we thought, she’ll give us a smile soon. But I’m not sure she ever did. We Almost Had a Baby opened the set which delighted me as it’s my favourite. But when I trill along with her at home it’s at a more enjoyable pace; it was to be a theme of the set that she raced through her songs which seemd to imply that she wasn’t having a brilliant time. Yet another signpost was that her audience chat mainly dealt with talking to her “piece of shit guitar” about her “piece of shit guitar”. Sigh.

It was heartening when she realised that she only had two minutes to go and was determined to play another song and actually did. (I wouldn’t have been surprised if she’d shrugged and said ‘oh well, we may as well go then’). Oh Emmy. We love your tunes and we love your voice but please believe in your crowd a bit more and do try to have a bit more fun. You’re Emmy The Great and we expect great things.

Joy Thomas