Review: Jessie J @ Albert Hall 9/10/17
Three years after the smash album Sweet Talker, Jessie J made a big comeback on stage in Manchester at Albert Hall, an intimate affair where feelings ran high and tears where shed both by the artist and by fans.
The singer had been delighting fans with the tease of a new album titled R.O.S.E – realisations, obsessions, sex, empowerment – and treating them to releases of the songs ‘Think About That’, ‘Not My Ex’ and ‘Queen’ in the run up to the live shows scheduled. A more soulful, old school R&B Jessie J than we’re used to, but it works!
This show kicked off with support from Stanaj, who was not too well known in the UK before, but has probably now gained many new fans. He put in a fabulous performance and the audience loved him. It did help he was very cute too!
When Jessie took to the stage, fans screamed louder than they probably ever had before, a clear excitement amongst the crowd as usual, but also a sense that they’d missed their favourite pop star.
She opened with ‘Who You Are’, a nod to her first album, and delighted the crowd with a mix of her new material and some of the old classic everyone loves to bop along to, like ‘Domino’.
From the offset it was clear to everyone that Jessie meant business. She was there to be herself, in her most emotional and raw form, and to be honest with everyone. She spoke about the tough times she had been facing, how lost she had become in her time away from the limelight. She mentioned family, and loves in her life, and how everything had shaped her and her new material.
But whilst it was a meaningful experience to share, it still came with a flare of the old Jessie J everyone knows and loves. She danced like she used to. Goofed around with her band and some of the fans.
The ‘Price Tag’ star also played her favourite game of “Spot the plus one”, a little interlude where she went around the audience and picked out who had actually come to see her, and who had been ‘dragged out’ as a plus one.
She spoke passionately about choosing love, and half way through the set covered ‘Earth Song’ by the late Micheal Jackson, which seemed to touch the Manchester crowd immensely after this year’s events at the Ariana Grande concert, who featured on Jessie’s smash hit ‘Bang Bang’.
The singer ended the show – all too soon – how she had started, with a reprised version of ‘Who You Are’, reminding her fans, young and old, that ‘it’s okay not to be okay’. It seemed to be just what the crowd needed, and just what Jessie herself needed, and was a beautiful way to end a magnificent and stripped back show.