Today at MML 09

Saturday afternoon, and the final day of warm up for the big one begins, i'd like to say its 1pm sharp (the time this event was due to begin) but i had a late one last night.. and then a subsequent sleep in of serious proportions.

This afternoons show was held down at the central library, (the reference library to be precise) it seemed an ideal space for this sort of thing, 5 acoustic singer songwriters.. as i mentioned earlier.. i am late, so late in fact that sadly only 2 of the 5 acts remain.

i'll give you the line up anyway..

I'm not google
Evelyn Burke
Laura Victoria
Suzanne Elizabeth Marron
Elaine Palmer

So.. i stumbled into the room, just as Suzanne elizbeth Marron was tuning up, She sat on a stool, mounted casually on a stage at the head of an old large dusty room (the reference library).
The accoustics in this place were amazing, it seemed almost custom made for this purpose.

It is my considered opinion that north east singer /song writers, have something special, a different collective voice to trubadors from other areas,.. there is an honesty, a different way of thinking and talking, which has its own very distinctive and very placable charm, a style and performance open and free of pretention, now all north east singer song writers dont use our
regional charm to theyre advantage, but Suzanne elizabeth Marron certainly does, and i think she uses it unintentionally which makes it all the more endearing.

She played for about 45 minutes , moving from heartfelt ballad, to plucky upbeat songs in which she picked out rather complicated tunes with apparent ease, The only finger that could be pointed at the young songstress, is that her songs all delictately crafted and well written, did seem to share the one theme , love and the loss of it, i couldnt help thinkigng if she is following the advice write what you know about, then shes suffered a lot for a young un. Still a good set it was, if i had to make a comparison, id say think a north east kathryn williams with less chelo.

Last to take the stage was Elaine Palmer (pictured above), now ive seen her before, ad she was great, she is the other side of this genre, if Suzanne Marron is qwerky north east charm, then Elaine Palmer is definately the more serious end of the spectrum, for 45 minutes she layed upon us her view of the world, from heartbreaks to social comment, from regional observation to something aproaching sea shanties, whatever you want to call it, it was song writing of the highest order. fact.