Lou Rhodes – One Good Thing
It’s been a long time since I went to see a gig with no prior expectations. I knew Lou Rhodes, of Lamb, was excellent at dark, trippy, tormented but I hadn’t really heard much of her solo work aside from the odd track here or there when I had a second in the run up to last night’s show at Bush Hall.
Her voice has such a beautiful, soft, texture and her demeanour is unassuming but captivating. Every song was pure and simple – acoustic guitar with accompaniment from cello, glockenspiel (?) and double bass (John Thorne) – and it wasn’t just a plug & play show, you could really feel what each track meant to her, personally.
I love it when that happens!
I wanted to post her new single up here but can’t find it so here’s an alternative:
Lou Rhodes - Beloved One
At one point towards the end of the set, she said something along the lines of “Every show is about the crowd – sometimes you feel a connection with them and sometimes you just don’t. You’re one of the former” (paraphrasing here, but that was the gist of it)…and then went on to talk about her facebook page and that we should all go there every day and post our “one good thing” for the day to help remind us of the good things that happen in life when things aren’t going so well.
Clearly Lou marketing her forthcoming album – coincidentally titled “One Good Thing” – but it did make me think.
I know I’m guilty, when things aren’t going exactly how I’d like them to (or even sometimes when they’re going really well!), of focussing on what I’m unhappy about or what’s getting me down and forgetting the little things that happen every day to bring a smile to my face. Having some way to help me remember, even spending a few minutes each day thinking about it, sounds like a good thing…
So I’m going to try to tweet one every day with the additional bonuses being that a) I can do it by text from my phone and b) something that made me smile might have a similar effect on someone else.
From yesterday, it’s making snowflake stencils to decorate the office windows for our party. Simple things.
If anyone’s interested, or even wants to join in, I’ll tag them #onegoodthing.
Some free marketing for Lou Rhodes’ new album, One Good Thing, to be released on The Cinematic Orchestra‘s new label Motion Audio and distributed by Ninja Tune in March 2010…
