There’s something rather wonderful about watching an artist who has spent more than four decades making music, yet still seems to be discovering new things about herself. And at Belfast’s Waterfront Hall, Alison Moyet delivered an evening that was as much about celebrating her music as reflecting on the experience of growing older.
The concert was built around an intriguing concept, bringing together Yazoo’s two albums from the early 1980s, Upstairs at Eric’s and You and Me Both, with Alison’s later electronic solo albums, The Minutes and Other, recorded in her fifties. Four albums spanning two very different periods of her career, and two very different stages of life.
She reflected on the different perspectives we bring to songwriting as we grow older. As a teenager, inspired by singers such as Janis Joplin, she was writing about relationships and emotions she hadn’t experienced herself. Now, in what she cheerfully describes as late middle age, she approaches those subjects with a lifetime of experience. There was something fascinating about that contrast between the teenager imagining what life might feel like and the woman who has actually lived it.
Alison also spoke about feeling ‘other’, of being socially awkward and never quite fitting in, a theme reflected in the title of her 2017 album, Other. Rather than allowing those feelings to define her, she found her own creative space.
Musically, the evening was a wonderful reminder of just how extraordinary her voice remains. Rich, powerful and unmistakable, it moved between intimate moments and the electronic energy that first made her famous. Songs including Nobody’s Diary, Only You and Can You Hear Me showcased the emotional range of her music, while I Germinate demonstrated the creativity and depth of her later work.
But this was certainly no evening of simply standing behind a microphone. There were dance moves too, those wonderfully individual, almost robotic movements that seemed perfectly suited to the electronic music. Alison was funny, outspoken and wonderfully self-aware, sharing stories and observations with an audience clearly delighted to be spending the evening in her company.
And then came the irresistible energy of 1982. The electronic disco sounds that introduced Alison to a generation returned, with Don’t Go providing a thrilling conclusion. More than forty years later, those songs still have the power to get an audience moving.
But beyond the music, what stayed with me was the woman herself. At one point, Alison joked about looking like the 65-year-old granny she is when she’s not performing, and I couldn’t help thinking about that socially awkward little girl who found creativity in her own world because she never quite felt she belonged in everyone else’s.
That little girl has grown up to become quite possibly the coolest 65-year-old granny in pop. And what a wonderful thing that is.
