“Would you like to go inside the room?”, offered the woman who had given me the headset. I nodded, climbed the steps and opened the door. There were five other people watching. This was an exclusive gig. After a bit of radio conversation (in Dutch), the singer began again.
‘Hang on, I recognise this‘, I thought. This is one of the tracks that Julia from fab PR company, Evans Above, has been raving about and has sent me to listen to.
Sure enough, this was Gitta De Ridder playing a short set. There might not have been many in this room but the beauty with which she was delivering her songs ensured we were all transfixed. Songs that I’d listened to on record came into their own in a live setting. The punchy ‘Even If’, an impossible love song mixing tender innocence with a dose of reality, comes across with spectacular grace in this confined space.
Gitta saves her best for last. I’d been too eager to dismiss her track, Lie With Me, on previous listens. Perhaps I’d considered it too soppy and sentimental, too Radio 2 for my cool-as-fuck hipster ears (Ha ha). Regardless, here was an artist delivering something with such clarity and overwhelming beauty that I had to blame the cold weather for the tear that formed on my eyelid.
Julia tells me that Gitta is coming over to the UK again soon. I’ll be at the front of the queue to see her when she does.
sonicbreakfast 