WORTH A LOOK?: ****1/2
WHEN?: Thursday 28 October 2021
SETLIST: Love The Beginning; Silver Balloons; Mathematics; Motorway; Working Girl; Landline; Crying On The Inside; Get Things Done; Every Night I Say A Prayer; Shake; Remedy; SOS/Dancing Queen/Fernando; Stuck On Repeat; Tomorrow’s Yesterdays
We’re here for Boots’ 1st London gig in 2 years because she doesn’t know when she’ll be playing live as a solo act again as she’s big boots to fill, she’s joining ABBA.
- Read on for reasons including more about Boots’ new album and her role in the ABBA Voyage shows next year
And for ABBA read the backing band for the holograms which play in a purpose-built east London arena as part of the ABBA Voyage shows from May next year. Tickets
‘There’s 800 days of rehearsal to go, I’ll be a hologram by the end of it,’ jokes the electropop star and DJ as she plays an ABBA medley as part of the encore and when she occasionally forgets the words or the elaborate music, she mutters: ”The hologram will go: ‘Aargh!’ and look at me.’
Silver balloons appropriately litter the intimate venue which is the title of Boots’ current single, a song of the week for us recently, and lead track from a new album we think will be called Tomorrow’s Yesterdays but more of that later.
Boots is playing solo tonight and focuses on a variety of keyboards, occasionally sitting down, a necessity she says as she is growing older and has been watching Elton John videos on YouTube to learn a trick of two from the piano balladeer ‘because we’ve got so much in common’.
Her next single out in a fortnight or so Landline boasts a 70s disco swagger crossed with uplifting 90s house and is a tale of shared listening to the Backstreet Boys during romantic nights on phones that feels a world away in the iPhone age.
Boots tells us the story of a gathering at Carly Rae Jepson’s house and how she was inspired to pen a Fleetwood Mac-infused song for her that was not accepted and so finds itself on Boots’ new album.
Crying On The Inside is a real attempt at pop not made pretty by trendy production and Boots admits she’s going for traditional songwriting now she’s not quite as trendy as she was when she burst on to the pop scene a decade or so ago.
Last song tonight is the title track of that new album – Tomorrow’s Yesterdays – and she is joined onstage by a male co-writer for a duet featuring the line: ‘ You had the best years of my life’ which feels like a cross between the Beautiful South, Marc Almond and 70s middle-of-the-road rock. In a good way.
We’ve focussed on the new tracks because they are so strong and bode well for that forthcoming album which is much-anticipated. We’re really looking forward to ABBA Voyage, with the album dropping next week, and we’re delighted Boots is so thrilled to take part.
It would be a shame however if those commitments mean she can’t give new album Tomorrow’s Yesterdays the promotional push these choice highlights sounds like it richly deserves.
monstagigz 
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