The evening before the release of her highly anticipated third studio album, Rebecca Lucy Taylor – known best by stage name Self Esteem – previewed tracks to a lucky Southampton audience.
Performing at The 1865 as part of a Vinilo Records outstore event, the set was a stripped back, acoustic one, stepping away from the highly choreographed staging of previous tours.
Assisted by only three backing singers and an acoustic guitarist, Rebecca and co walked on stage and immediately broke into Focus is Power, one of the lead singles from the new album.
The majority of the set was made up of new songs, for A Complicated Woman was simply hours away from the keen ears of fans.
The acoustic tour came only days after a West End run at London’s Duke of York’s Theatre, where the album was performed in full.
After a performance of The Curse, Rebecca joked she would have to substitute something for the repeated swearing within the song.
Cheers to Me – another reason the album comes with an explicit language warning – quickly followed, soon then by If Not Now, It’s Soon.
The crowd’s largest reaction came for Fucking Wizardry, a fan favourite 2021’s Mercury Prize nominated album, Prioritise Pleasure.
Logic Bitch! came before What Now – a song Rebecca revealed was renamed to avoid confusion with a book by Carol Vorderman.
The crowd interaction was comedic and plentiful. Watching Rebecca joke about herself and her own songs shows why away from the music, she is making a name as a TV star (just look at Richard Osman’s House of Games and Celebrity Bake Off)!
From staging a West End production to touring as an acoustic quintet within the space of one week, the concert proved just how versatile Self Esteem can be.
In October this year, she’ll set out on a UK wide tour, stopping in Birmingham, Edinburgh, Newcastle, Glasgow, Manchester, Bristol, London, Brighton before a gig in Sheffield, not far from her birthplace of Rotherham.
