I mentioned in my previous post that, as a birthday treat, Nick had gotten me tickets to a concert. They were for the Kate Nash show. I actually knew in advance that they were part of my gift because he had to make sure we didn’t both end up buying tickets.
It was coincidental that Nick gave me the tickets within a greeting card that had the image of Amy Winehouse on it, since Kate and Amy are graduates of the same performing arts school, The BRIT located in the London Borough of Croydon, England. Amy was four years older, so they wouldn’t have crossed paths there, but it’s interesting that they had this in common and then tickets to Kate’s show were gifted inside an Amy card. (Adele also went to the same school, and they would have been there at the same time. So, maybe now I should be expecting some Adele tickets delivered inside a Kate card. I’ll let you know when that happens!)
The concert was at The Mod Club Theatre in Little Italy, a week ago Monday.
↑ On the way to the show. ↑
↑ The Mod Club Theatre, 722 College Street. ↑
Kate Nash has been in the music business for over a decade, winning many awards for her single “Foundations” and debut album “Made of Bricks” in 2008, including “British Female Solo Artist” at The British Music Awards, and “Best Solo Artist” at the NME Awards. Remarkably, she was only 20 when this happened.
With such early success, Kate Nash undoubtedly had the ability to be working with one of the big labels today, however she chose to remain an indie artist, forming her own label, “Have 10p Records” in 2011.
She is also an outspoken advocate for women’s rights and for human rights, in general. Reinforcing her unwavering support of feminism, in 2016 she posted a series of tweets criticizing a music store for selling vinyl records featuring female artists in a “females of all description” category. She went on to state her views citing there would “never be a ‘males of all description’ section because the rest of the shop and all other music genres are considered male”.
Kate has now written and released 4 studio albums. The concert on Monday was in support of “Yesterday was Forever” which was just released a month ago. To quote wiki, “the record notably sees Nash return to her indie pop roots. The albums themes revolve around mental health and relationships. Nash openly confirmed that she has obsessive compulsive disorder and anxiety and is an advocate for raising awareness for the importance of mental health.”
This was her first album in 5 years — Nick and I were at her show for the last one, too (I was new at blogging, but you can see my blurry photos of it here, if you’d like). We recognized the guitar and bass player from that previous show. Seeing that these ladies are all still travelling and performing together indicates what must be a strong friendship. They, and the drummer, certainly emitted a sense of camaraderie and love, which permeated the venue.
The concert was the same day as a terrible occurrence in Toronto — that afternoon we had experienced the worse mass killing in Canada in 30 years, after a man purposely ran a van along the sidewalk, killing 10 and injuring 13. At the time of the show, the identity of the victims was not publicly known and it wasn’t clear that this had been a hate crime against women, but this became evident in the days following. So, there was a shadow cast by the horrible event, but Kate addressed it right off the bat and several times throughout the show, expressing her sorrow for our city.
All that talent, poise, independence and performance skill defied the fact that this lady is merely 30 years old.
I was great and we had such a good time! Here’s to receiving a gift of experience.
Thanks for reading,
xo loulou
