James Morrison Live at Sheffield Academy

Having already won Best British Male Solo Artist at the 2007 BRIT Awards and selling over one million copies of his debut album, ‘Undiscovered’, by the end of 2006, James Morrison is certainly an exciting young talent. After ‘Undiscovered’ in 2006, Morrison began the nerve-wracking job of writing and recording his notoriously difficult second album – and he didn’t disappoint. Morrison himself has said that the album (‘Songs for You, Truths for Me’) is songs for his girlfriend, Gill, daughter, Elsie, and everybody else – but also truths for him. But the album itself is more than that – there’s a guarantee that anybody who listens to it will be able to relate to the heartfelt, thoughtful lyrics. So, bearing all of this in mind, we knew we were in for a good show. Admittedly, we were only three rows from the stage itself which probably helped contribute to the amazing atmosphere we experienced. After a much anticipated stage entrance, Morrison launched into the opening track of his second album, ‘The Only Night’, quickly followed by a song from his first album, ‘Under the Influence’. Next up were two of our favourite tracks, ‘Undiscovered’, and ‘Please Don’t Stop the Rain’ – a song that had been released on the very same day. It was obvious that each and every member of the audience were enthralled by the charismatic delivery of the songs and even when he spoke in between them – such as when he told the audience, “Nelly Furtado? Stuff her!” – a comment that the fans pretty much agreed with as cheering ensued. ‘Save Yourself’, ‘This Boy’, ‘You Make It Real’ and ‘Broken Strings’ soon followed – with the ‘beautiful’ Miss Beverley Brown taking the place of Furtado. Other songs played from his second album include ‘Love Is Hard’, ‘If You Don’t Wanna Love Me’, ‘Precious Love’ and ‘Nothing Ever Hurt Like You’. Morrison next decided to take a break from playing his own music and launched into an interesting fusion of his own song, ‘Call the Police’, and the Stevie Wonder classic, ‘Uptight’, closely followed by a cover of Changes by David Bowie. ‘Dream On Hayley’, a heartfelt dedication to his older sister – Hayley – was then followed by another song closely linked to his own life, ‘Once When I Was Little’. By this point the whole audience were desperate to hear the two tracks that ‘made’ him – the two that you can’t help but love. A woman behind us even screamed that she wanted to hear ‘You Give Me Something’ and our guess is she left happy as he immediately launched into the opening bars of the song and the audience went wild (including the woman behind us, who screamed in sheer delight.) Our feet were tired from standing all night and our ears were ringing but still we couldn’t let him leave the stage for good without playing his signature song, ‘Wonderful World’. And as we all stood there, singing along to the soulful yet cheery melodies, we couldn’t help but agree – it definitely is.

Rachel (Webmistress) and Beth (Twitmisress)