MAGGIE ROGERS + SAMIA – BRIGHTON DOME 8.11.22
Twenty-eight year old Maryland born singer-songwriter and record producer Maggie Rogers this evening performed her debut Brighton concert at The Dome in support of her latest UK Top 10 album ‘Surrender’.
Maggie is over this side of the pond as part of her ‘The Feral Joy Tour’ which has thus far seen her entertaining folks in Leeds, Glasgow, Dublin, Birmingham, Manchester, and Bristol. Tomorrow she heads off to London, before flying back home to the USA to play 13 dates, some of which have already sold out. After which, she will return to Europe for another 10 performances. Clearly she is a hard-working lady and this no doubt pleases her current label ‘Capitol Records’.
Hard work has also seen her graduate with a degree in music engineering and production and English back in 2016, and this year she turned in her Master’s thesis and passed with distinction at Harvard Divinity School.
Maggie has been composing music for a decade and her lucky break came about when her song ‘Alaska’ was played to Pharrell Williams during a master class at New York University’s Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music in 2016. The following year she made her television debut on ‘The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon’ and in 2019 her ‘Heard It In A Past Life’ album dropped with huge success in her home country. Now after lockdown, everything is geared to promoting ‘Surrender’.
Fans were in Maggie’s company for 100 minutes tonight, where she and her six chums gave us no less than 19 songs, with a dozen of these all coming from the latest ‘Surrender’ platter. The Brighton Dome stage was decked out with plants with rugs on the floor, in order to make it look homely. The backlighting shifted from single colour to another and the sound was warm and crisp. Maggie’s shows wouldn’t really suit flashing lasers and strobes, it is not that kind of sound. There were half a dozen keyboards dotted about the stage including a Moog, there were two guitars in action, as well as a bass, and separate drums and percussion, along with Maggie on vocals and occasional acoustic guitar.
At 9:14pm, Maggie entered the stage wearing a glistening silver and black coat and launched into ‘Overdrive’, the first of 12 from her ‘Surrender’ album. The tune concluded and the audience members that were standing in the stalls showed their appreciation the most. The coat was ditched, and Maggie continued with ‘Want Want’ which highlighted the fact that she has a good vocal range.
Maggie’s music is easy on the ear American radio friendly music, thus it has a wide appeal and this is accurately reflected by the demography of the audience. As the set continued, comparisons to the likes of Mariah Carey, Shania Twain, and Fleetwood Mac sprang to mind. Only the drummer and the percussionist were not offering backing vocals, the remainder did and this added to the depth of sound.
Support artist, Samia, returned to the stage to sing joint vocals with Maggie for ‘Honey’. The tunes came and went and blended into each other until they played The Blue Nile song ‘Let’s Go Out Tonight’, which was offering something a little different. The laidback ‘I’ve Got A Friend’ followed with just four people on stage. After this tune, Maggie informed us that tonight was her first time performing in Brighton and that she truly loves the venue. We also learned that her sister went to “Grad School” here in Brighton.
My choice tunes of the evening were ‘Back In My Body’ and ‘Alaska’ which both can be found on the 2019 ‘Heard It In A Past Life’ album. They were more uplifting than all of the others, but I suspect many present would opt for ‘Light On’ (from the same album), as Maggie got the standing punters in the stalls to crouch down and jump up again. After the tune concluded, the applause was almost deafening. They ended with ‘Different Kind Of World’ and at around five minutes to eleven, they vacated the stage. The fans went home happy.
Maggie Rogers setlist:
‘Overdrive’ (from 2022 ‘Surrender’ album)
‘Want Want’ (from 2022 ‘Surrender’ album)
‘Say It’ (from 2019 ‘Heard It In A Past Life’ album)
‘Honey’ (with Samia) (from 2022 ‘Surrender’ album)
‘Love You For A Long Time’ (from 2021 ‘Sunset Soundtrack’ various artists compilation album)
‘Be Cool’ (from 2022 ‘Surrender’ album)
‘Shatter’ (from 2022 ‘Surrender’ album)
‘Dog Years’ (from 2016 ‘Dog Years’ single)
‘Symphony’ (from 2022 ‘Surrender’ album)
‘Let’s Go Out Tonight’ (The Blue Nile cover)
‘I’ve Got A Friend’ (from 2022 ‘Surrender’ album)
‘Back In My Body’ (from 2019 ‘Heard It In A Past Life’ album)
‘Alaska’ (from 2019 ‘Heard It In A Past Life’ album)
‘Begging For Rain’ (from 2022 ‘Surrender’ album)
‘Horses’ (from 2022 ‘Surrender’ album)
‘Anywhere With You’ (from 2022 ‘Surrender’ album)
‘Light On’ (from 2019 ‘Heard It In A Past Life’ album)
‘That’s Where I Am’ (from 2022 ‘Surrender’ album)
(encore)
‘Different Kind Of World’ (from 2022 ‘Surrender’ album)
Support this evening came from Samia who is from New York and entertained us with her band for 36 minutes from 8:01pm. Samia was on vocals and her bandmates were taking care of bass, drums, two keyboards, and guitar, as well as all of them adding backing vocals when required.
They opened with ‘Pool’ which is a quiet number, which was followed by ‘Fit N Full’, which was more in the vein as soft pop rock. For tunes three to six ‘Big Wheel’, ‘Triptych’, ‘Stellate’, and ‘Mad At Me’, they were joined by Samia’s friend, who I thought was called Alisha Lang. ‘Mad At Me’ we learned only came out last week and it will feature on the forthcoming ‘Honey’ 11 song album, due out 27th January 2023. This time was by far the best of her nine track set. It reminded me of Christine And The Queens. They concluded with a cover of ‘Maps’ by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs.
Samia setlist:
‘Pool’
‘Fit N Full’
‘Big Wheel’
‘Triptych’
‘Stellate’
‘Mad At Me’
‘Waverly’
‘Is There Something In The Movies?’
‘Maps’ (Yeah Yeah Yeahs cover)
