SHE'S an endearing personality, a distinctive singer and a talented songwriter, but it's becoming harder to divorce Kate Nash from the ever-growing cult of acolytes who flock to her call, floral print dresses and soft red bangs all present and correc
t.
The 21-year-old Londoner deserves her position as a style icon, but it is a bit depressing to see just how many blind followers of fashion there are out there.
Nash's cause wasn't helped at this Edge Festival show by unspecified technical errors getting the better of her band during the early part of the set, stripping tracks such as Birds of their cutesy drama. The absence of whatever wasn't working made certain tracks sound empty, and the lower-key interlude in the middle didn't exactly raise the game.
With just Nash on piano and the occasional bit of guitar, otherwise strong new tracks such as Seagulls and Pick Pocket threatened just to float off, while another new song, a full band one named Do Waa Do, currently boasts not much more than a judiciously placed excerpt from Manfred Mann's Do Wah Diddy Diddy.
Then she played the hits, from the ever-more-jolly Foundations and Merry Happy to a version of Skeleton Song – not a hit, but an upbeat song – which was abetted by six "skelington" dancers, as Nash had it.
By the end of the always-excellent closer Pumpkin Soup she was literally screaming into the mic and walking across her piano keys, and we were left to wishfully imagine an entire Nash set played with such winning vigour.
The full article contains 271 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
