Joanna Newsom 
The Palace Theatre, Manchester
18/09/2010

It says much for Joanna Newsom’s talent that her proceeding musical explorations since debut album ‘The Milk-Eyed Mender’ have found an increasingly widespread following, no matter the scale of their experimental ambition. She’s grown bolder each time, from the acquisition and subsequent discarding of the polyrhythms that underpinned 2006’s ‘Y’s to ‘Have One On Me’’s monumental three-disc sprawl this year. Yet despite the initially overwhelming complexity to both of those records, they both retain much of the warmth that her debut possessed in abundance. Through speakers and headphones this glimmer of Newsom’s rich personality takes on a less obvious form, but live it simply refuses to let go, an irresistible embrace that tonight draws the stately Mancunian theatre helplessly in.

So confident is the Californian at the moment that she elects to include just one song from seminal LP ‘Y’s – the sweeping ‘Cosmia’ – this evening, yet still floors her audience with a 90 minute performance of sheer majesty. The bulk of the songs unsurprisingly come from ‘Have One On Me’, but three tracks from ‘The Milk-Eyed Mender’ also appear, threaded seamlessly into proceedings by Newsom’s five-piece band who construct deceptively rigid foundations from which the protagonist’s harp flits and flutters above. Newsom herself is restless too, jumping between harp and piano while also chatting frequently to the crowd with a disarmingly humble demeanour, juxtaposing the grandiosity of both music and setting with a real sense of intimacy.

And this is why she can connect with so many despite such single-minded invention; at the root of it all lies a yearning to write honest songs that connect emotionally, exemplified by ‘Jackrabbits’’ stripped back solo encore that sees Newsom’s dulcet vocal quietened to a hush. It brings to the surface a simplicity that remains constant throughout, no matter how much it’s re-imagined.

Simon Jay Catling