Emile Sande has perfected the trick of being energized and enervating at the same time; she does it all the time, listen to “Where I Sleep” and “Next To Me”, two excited yet sleepy slices of modern power ballads, and both of which she plays at Central Park. Maybe the highlights of her career so far, in the former, she rouses and submerges herself in an extended jam and in the latter, the closing song of her set, she opens at her keyboards disappearing from views behind a mountain of umbrellas, before taking it at a steady dash, slowing it down to a crawl by introducing her band (last song? lame) while the audience left. Amateur night out. Busy and lackadaisical.
Sandi followed in the footsteps of Adele and I didn’t like either in 2011. Adele was a stalking nutcase fat chick out to crash your wedding and wonder why you didn’t return her call after the one night stand; she is the sort of woman you can imagine fricasseeing your daughters rabbit. She is a creep. But a good voice that shook the rafters. Emili is a clinging vine who when you wanna go out and get trashed with the boys would cause such a scene that you are stuck watching the X Factor while Emili croons “You won’t find him drinking at the tables, rolling dice and staying out til 3.” Chance would be a fine thing.
After keeping the audience waiting an hour in the rain for no reason except she charges top dollar for an ultra slim 70 minute set, Emili started the set behind keyboards and stepped out to dance, moving alright, not very alright, and if her reason for being was to excite New York with a full set did nothing of the sort. Still pushing Our Version of Events, a million seller super hit that took over from 21 in 2012, she performed a highly choreographed set of her new standards and adding nothing much to em. Opening with the lousy “Daddy” she followed it with the lousy hit single “Heaven” and it took till the third song with the not amused to be left in the rain audience to respond with “Where I Sleep”.
Look her singing is good enough for sure, and she does have some good songs. I did overreact last year, she wasn’t as bad as I claimed. But she is nothing great and the songs must be written for women because as a man, I can’t recognize myself in em. She doesn’t ra ra ra the mixed gay-straight, men-women audience, but she completely fails to collect with them.
Rudimental, a disco band from London, could teach her a thing are two. They played 45 minutes of high energy disco, soul, pop and always house beats somewhere in the mix. The “Rudi” in rudimental should be a Two Tone type pun, because the energy, the dancing, certainly the excellent trumpet player, had a ska type (not sound) going on. These are three songwriters and producers plus a DJ at the heart of it all : Piers Agget, Kesi Dryden, Amir Amor (Amir Izadkhah) and DJ Locksmith (Leon Rolle).
Pushing their new album, the first rate Home, they come across like a super cool modern disco party band. Highlights abound but, yes, that is the real Ella Eyre 19 year old wunderkind handling vocals on “Waiting All night” and Rudimental’s set closing “Feel The Love” was a lesson in how you leave an indelible impression on an audience that does not belong to you. The whole place sung along and Rudimental stretched the song for all it was worth. I bought a tee shirt.
And then it started to rain and then we waited.
Emili Sande – C-
Rudimental – B+