Nice is underrated

Friday night at the Villa Marina, and Sophie Ellis-Bextor in the Royal Hall.

I had been at the Gaiety the night before, which I have written about elsewhere, and I arrived at the Villa rather in need of a better evening. I got one.

What struck me first was the shape of it. Between songs she spoke to the room as though the whole night were a courtship. We had just been on a date, she said, so perhaps we ought to take the relationship a little further. Shall we go to the disco? And then the songs followed that arc, each one moving us along the progression she had laid out, so that by the time Murder on the Dancefloor arrived we had, metaphorically speaking, earned it. A few covers along the way, all handled with the same lightness.

It ought not to be remarkable that a performer is simply nice. Warm, funny, generous with the audience, visibly pleased to be on a small Island on a Friday in July. But this week it was remarkable, and I was glad of it.

Then the ending. She left the stage and reappeared on the balcony, up among the crowd, where she sang with no microphone at all, accompanied by nothing but an acoustic guitar. A room that size falling completely silent is its own form of applause. It was beautiful, and it is the sort of thing you can only attempt if you trust the room and the room trusts you.

Two nights, two performers, one small Island. One of them spent the evening telling us who to be angry with. The other asked us to the disco.

My faith in humanity is not fully restored, but it is measurably up on Thursday.