Red-hot Calvi carries her fans along the full spectrum of sensuality
Pop Anna Calvi Roundhouse, London NW1 ★★★★★
On stage, Anna Calvi cuts a sharp figure. At the Roundhouse on Thursday night, the double-mercury-nominated rocker was backed by her band – a good and tight one, too – but they were left in the darkness behind her. Everything in the room, from the fog that corkscrewed around her to her flamenco dancer’s shirt, flared a deep, hot red.
Calvi’s songs are yearning, aching things. Her lyrics shut out the everyday; they obsess over passion and lust, whether requited or otherwise. More often than not, on her latest album Hunter, they’re unashamedly queer.
They’re driven by her sheer virtuosity on the guitar. For all the drama of Calvi’s style, her technique is masterfully controlled. She can finesse her way up a pealing arpeggio, then crown it with a pure single note that snaps and stings. Her voice is just as dexterous, imbuing declarations of desire with a quavering breath that makes you feel everything she says.
The 38-year-old Londoner is often compared to other female songwriters with self-possession and bite. (PJ Harvey is usually the first.) Not only is this lazy, but it’s decades off. Calvi cast herself as the heir to Seventies rock and its raw libido. Indies and Paradise, the second song of her set, was all heavy kick-drums and grubby guitar. Her rhythms had the sensual crash of Led Zeppelin; she strutted about like Marc Bolan in a sharper shirt.
But no matter how wild the abandon, she knew how to soften the tone. Swimming Pool and Away, quieter cuts from Hunter, were backlit by a gentle, pale white light. Calvi’s voice, suddenly made temperate and fragile, now sang of how love is fraught with self-doubt: “You know I ask no more of it all… just take it all.”
Swimming Pool, lushly melodic, was a highlight of the set. Like several of Calvi’s songs, it was born of visual art, inspired by David Hockney’s Sixties paintings of Californian swimming pools. Once upon a time, young Anna hoped to go to art school. Later, she thought she’d write film scores instead.
The Roundhouse can be dampened by a placid audience, half sitting down and half standing amiably below. But Calvi’s spectrum of sensuality had this crowd’s emotions on a string. There were screams at the gender-fluid anthem Don’t Beat the Girl Out of my Boy, a reverent hush at the elegiac Eden, and, in the encore, loud cheers for Desire, her exultant first hit.
The audience was rapt until the end. From fevered cries to plaintive whispers, Calvi’s act was a non-stop erotic cabaret where she played all the roles with aplomb. It made for a spellbinding hour: so exuberant, so proud.