Gig review: Olympic Torch Concert, Edinburgh Castle

By DAVE POLLOCK
Published on 15/06/2012 04:01

ONE of the most feted up-and-coming artists on the UK music scene she may be, but here Aberdeen’s Emeli Sandé was essentially just another bit of flash and sparkle surrounding the Olympic Torch’s arrival in Edinburgh.

Olympic Torch Concert

Edinburgh Castle

***

Sandé was heading a diverse bill that included London street-dance duo and Britain’s Got Talent alumni Twist & Pulse and Edinburgh children’s choir The Big Project, conducted by Kim Edgar.

Among a fiesta of overt corporate branding, Sandé’s full-band, four-song set was perfectly pitched for the occasion: as rousing and aspirational as the television credit sequence for the Games will no doubt be, but confidently projecting her own identity amid the attendant spectacle. Wearing a black leather jacket and a saltire painted on her cheek, she played her hits Heaven and My Kind of Love with full-voiced gusto, although her spoken asides were no doubt necessarily bland.

“It’s about the wonder that we all have inside of us,” she announced before new song Wonder, which married a bouncing repetitive piano line and an almost clubby drum beat, “if you feel you have wonder inside of you, please let us know.”

Her last song, Next to Me, was met with cheers for its opening piano lines and a Mexican wave that seemed to keep streaming round and round the arena.

Like the rest of her short set it was delivered with a crisp professionalism, which suggests she’ll be back in this venue under her own steam before long.