WILDWOOD KIN + MEGAN LARA MAE + THE LUCK – KOMEDIA, BRIGHTON 18.11.19
Wildwood Kin are an alt folk band consisting of two sisters, Beth & Emillie Key, and their cousin, Meghann Loney. From a young age the three girls would sing harmonies to everything, from jingles to radio tracks, nowadays, they take it in turn to sing lead vocals and harmonise together. Hailing from Devon, their first album, ‘Turning Tides’, was released in 2017. They quote their influences as including The Civil Wars, Fleet Foxes, and Mumford & Sons, as well as legends like Simon & Garfunkel, Fleetwood Mac and James Taylor.
A large group of Wildwood Kin fans waited happily and eagerly to see their favourites at Komedia in Brighton last night, and the three arrived on stage to a warm welcome. Half way through a long tour, Beth and Emillie played and sang at either end of the stage with their cousin in the middle. Their first song, ‘Headed For The Water’ was a taster of things to come: polished 3 part harmonies combined with big, out-there, heartbeat drums. Over the evening they played a mix of songs from their new self-titled album along with old favourites and crowd pleasers. Next up was ‘Steady My Heart’ and ‘Beauty In Your Brokenness’, the latter being a song referencing Kintsugi, the Japanese art of mending broken artefacts and creating even more beauty, Meghann explained; just as in life, beauty and something better could always emerge from breakages.
Their only cover, Stevie Wonder’s ‘Higher Ground’ was an unusual choice to receive the Wildwood Kin treatment, but it worked well, transforming the song with their pure harmonies but losing the funk, of course, in so doing.
One of my favourite numbers was ‘Warrior Daughter’ a more multi-layered sound, written about the difficulty of starting out as a trio of young women in the mainly male-dominated music business. Although the song had a more populist appeal, the addition of Beth’s bouzouki playing with the big, out-there heartbeat drums and hooky chorus created a stirring anthem- imagine a track used on ‘The Vikings’ tv show for the arrival of female Vikings!
Another favourite was ‘Signals’ a softer, cleaner sound; in fact, my preferences, I realised, lay in the songs where the band including more variety of texture in their songs, whether varying the use of the drums or introducing more acapella singing or another instrument.
The audience lapped up every song and clapped and sang along when asked, some had seen the band previously on their last visit to Brighton at The Hope and Ruin. Another stand out track was ‘Never Alone’ a special song for all three members, written to commemorate the two sad losses the Kin had suffered recently, a powerful emotional number. Rounding off their set with ‘Time Has Come’, Wildwood Kin performed ‘The Valley’ as an encore. It was difficult to fault their beautiful harmonies and the audience cheered and clapped, leaving for home well satisfied.
Wildwood Kin are: Emillie Key (guitar/vocals), Beth Key (bouzouki/keyboards/vocals) and Meghann Loney (drums/vocals).
Wildwood Kin setlist reads:
‘Headed For The Water’
‘Steady My Heart’
‘Beauty In Your Brokenness’
‘Run’
‘The Author’
‘Breathe’
‘Higher Ground’ (Stevie Wonder cover)
‘The Crown Or Hold On’
‘Warrior Daughter’
‘All On Me’
‘Signals’
‘Never Alone’
‘Wake Up Sleeper’
‘On And On’
‘Taking A Hold’
‘Time Has Come’
(encore)
‘The Valley’
For more details regarding the band, visit their website: www.wildwoodkin.com
Support:
Megan Lara Mae
Based in Brighton and trained at BIMM, but originally from Birmingham, Mae is a synth-pop singer-songwriter who combines her melodies with electronic production. Mae combines the classical and choral with ambience, soul and electronic production. and her many influences include Rae Morris, Maggie Rogers and Aurora.
Mae began songwriting very young, she has performed at Glastonbury Festival, The Great Escape and Victorious Festival. MLM has also gained much radio recognition through broadcasts and Live Lounge performances on BBC Introducing. ’Into Daylight’, released in October 2018, was the debut EP release from Mae, which has racked up nearly 70k streams on Spotify alone.
Mae, a confident, lively young presence, gave the crowd a good taste of her unusual style, interesting songs featured her good voice with a synthesiser taking the place of a backing band. Her songs included ‘Jungle’, ‘Complicated’, and ‘Caribou’. The songs were enjoyable but, on occasion, overwhelmed by electronic sounds, echoes and effects. The audience were entertained and appreciative and Mae perfectly paved the way for the second support band.
The Luck
Continuing the sibling songwriting vibe, Max and Esmay Luck, an attractive brother-sister duo, were the main support act last night. The popular pair (over two million streams on Spotify) live in London and produce country and folk influenced Americana, songs which combine powerful vocals and lyrics.
Max and Esmay gave Wildwood Kin great support, providing one male and one female voice, one acoustic and one electronic guitar and plenty of excellent songs. Esmay’s vocals were often the more dominant but benefited greatly from Max’s additional harmonising, it was refreshing to hear a male voice with a female’s and both had distinctive and ear pleasing vocal skills, sometimes with a Celtic style folk lilt.
Starting with ‘Funeral’, the pair sang great harmonies, Max blending with Esmay’s voice extremely well and providing depth, I was immediately impressed. Imagine if ‘The Wandering Hearts’ lost another member, they would sound like this band, saying that, The Luck have their own style, strength and approach. ‘If This Is Love’ was a catchy, positive song about a break-up, the music spoke for itself, quickly followed by ‘Lionheart’ their latest single and a country pop influenced number, ideal for clapping along to, which the audience joined them with.
‘Holding On’ was the duo’s first ballad, dedicated to and written about those people who support us, and in their case, specifically their mother. An affecting song, which showed Esmay and Max’s breadth of ability. ‘Sting’ was about emerging stronger from a bad situation and built nicely towards the end. ‘Ready To Run’ was the catchy title track to their album and I could imagine it being taken up by BBC Radio 2 as track of the week, and indeed had already been played there, as had their last song ‘Vertigo’. Esmay and Max said how surreal it had been to hear ‘Vertigo’ played on Graham Norton’s radio show while they were driving. The Luck are definitely a sibling duo to watch, luck hasn’t got much to do with it, but talent and hard work definitely has…
The Luck setlist reads:
‘Funeral’
‘If This Is Love’
‘Lionheart’
‘Holding On’
‘Sting’
‘Ready To Run’
‘Vertigo’
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