You’d be forgiven for reacting with disbelief to the revelation that tonight marks Tara Blaise’s debut performance in the capital. The rise in the Wicklow native’s profile over the past four months has been spectacular, with appearances at the Isle of Wright and the V-Festivals to her credit, in addition to Oxegen.
Radio has picked up on her in a big way, playing the excellent singles ‘Paperback Cliché’ and ‘The Three Degrees’ off the air, while the benefit of having John Hughes and the team behind The Corrs managing her every move has been immense. There’s no doubt that her career is heading in the right direction.
Tonight, however, she seems nervous. She has natural presence, but she hasn’t worked out fully yet how to project it – whether to play the diva or to sing from the heart – with the result that she doesn’t always do full justice to the fine lyrics of her songs.
On record, her voice is superb, but here – notably on the opener ‘Superman In A Bottle’ – she sounds as if she might be suffering from the after-affects of a cold. In contrast, on ‘21 Years’, a song about her father’s death, we get a real sense of the emotional power she can conjure, as she begins to dig into the words she’s singing.
A cover of Neil Young’s ‘The Needle And The Damage Done’ is also exceptional. But she needs to get more gigs under her belt and to use them to decide whether she is best to take a theatrical or a natural approach. She has the talent. At her best, Blaise come across as warm, sexy and aching.
But she need to be at her best all the time.