There's a huge gap between the last ticket for Sigur Ros in 2002 and this one in 2006 for Lady Sovereign, but that fact shouldn't be used to conclude that I stopped going to shows for four years. For reasons I'm still not clear on, I stopped collecting tickets from shows in 2002 and it didn't occur to me to save them again until 2006. During this time, I'm sure that I saw Clutch, Meat Beat Manifesto, Mogwai, Mono, Low, Grandmaster Flash, and Sigur Ros a second time. Thankfully, I came to my senses when I went to see the five foot wonder, Lady Sovereign.
The DJ that opened the show was playing a weird mix that went from old school Prodigy to hot off the press dubstep dubplates, and it was a great way to warm up for the SOV. Lady Sovereign's vocal style is unique and her rhymes are funny, but the thing that pushes her over the edge for me is her production. Sure, her big label follow up to the much smaller debut wimped out on a lot of the weirder bass and rhythms that she started with, but it still gave us "Love me or Hate me" which is an absolute classic.
Make no mistake, Lady Sovereign is really only 5'1", but when she takes the stage, she commands it. She was nursing a cold when we saw her, but she still jumped all around hyping people up and yelling most of the lyrics to her songs. She's got a huge amount of charisma and it all comes through in the way she has carried herself in a world where a short white woman is not usually a star. Since this show I've not heard much at all about her. Like most flashes in a pan, she's probably burned through whatever hipster credit she got and the people from this show have likely moved on to something else. But she's a real talent and a great performer, so I hope to see her doing something else again soon.
