LIVE: Molly Burch @ The Joker, Brighton

Lullaby blues: Songstress performs intimate stripped back set

Texan-based songstress Molly Burch and her lush tones first drifted into my aural sphere a few months back. Molly’s debut LP Please Be Mine was released by Captured Tracks back in February, the month of Saint Valentine. Quite fitting considering the fact that the LP is a collection of love songs about heartbreak and reconnection. It’s a gorgeous debut which showcases her big velvety voice and songwriting prowess. Please be Mine is pretty much under the radar for now but with the amount of sheer talent contained on the 10 track LP, I doubt that it will stay that way for long. I caught the Brighton show of her EU/UK tour on a balmy Friday evening. Downstairs at the Joker, it was teeming with a lairy crowd of 9-5’ers doing their best "it’s the weekend" impression. Couldn’t have been more of a contrast pushing my way through this manic crowd upstairs to the chill vibes of the live music space. First on were support act Olivier Heim who got it warmed up thoroughly with his tropical grooves, they were genuinely beaming about being here on tour. Definitely worth checking out their music. Next up - Molly Burch. I had expected a rendition of the album live but the show was a stripped back performance of her beautifully crafted songs. Molly was solely accompanied by her guitarist and lover, Dailey Toliver. Quite a romantic idea considering he inspired most of the album. They opened with title track Please Be Mine, a hazy Righteous Brothers esque lullaby that snaked it’s way around the room and lulled the intimate crowd into a relaxed slightly hypnotic state. Burch picked up her guitar for the second track Please Forgive Me and strummed up the tempo, snapping us out of our dreamlike sway. The energy switched a notch again for the third song of the evening, Try, it was at this point that I really began to wish that the full band had been there to add the dynamics present on the album. Without the dynamics, it began melting into one long dream-like lullaby. Not a bad thing at all, but I needed a chair to sit on as I got sleepy and sleepier. I looked across the room, the one chair in the space was already taken by a lady who fully had her eyes closed, obviously enjoying the music from the comfort of her doze.  The duo took a few seconds break, time enough for Molly to tell us that the pair were stoked to be here on tour and that they had been having fun by mimicking our accents in secret. Crowd charmed, giggles murmured around the room, these two really are sweethearts in every sense of the term. The show carried on in much the same way, Molly’s huge voice hushing the dreamy room and the twinkling guitars backing her sympathetically. A sweet cover of Tammy Wynette’s hit Stand By Your Man took on a new life as the penultimate song. The set only seemed to last for a blink of an eye, but was in fact around 30-40 minutes. With time losing its hold maybe we had just been hypnotised after all. The evening at an end all too soon, the upbeat track Downhearted played out the duo bringing us all out of the lull and back to reality. If you missed her this time, Molly Burch will be touring again in September 2017 with her full band.