Holly Golightly - Windmill, London, 7/10/2004

  by Daniel Cressey

published: 10 / 10 / 2004

intro

"Holly Golightly is an artist so determined to avoid being modern that she was still recording albums that weren’t in stereo in the 90's." Daniel Cressey finds 'her retro obsession...far from slavish ' at a chaotic but compelling show in London

Holly Golightly is an artist so determined to avoid being modern that she was still recording albums that weren’t in stereo in the 90's. But her retro obsession is far from slavish as she shows tonight. Although the riffs could have come from way back in the day blues the band put a modern lilt on every song, without every seemingly aiming for an alt- prefix to their classification. It is a shame that she has been tagged as "the girl who sang with the White Stripes." Although her music fits into that particular genre, her unquestionable talent needs nothing to frame it – as she shows tonight. The Windmill could well be described as an "intimate" venue but "small" and "crowded" would fit equally well. The slightly unprofessional air of the venue fits perfectly with the easy, unpolished talent of Ms Golightly. “Sorry, we weren’t very prepared for this, as you can probably tell,” she says. We couldn’t. The strength of tonight’s gig is that it hasn’t been rehearsed to death. With the set list exhausted half-way through it opens up and becomes even more relaxed, stopping at one point for Holly to have a cigarette and call for a drink to be brought as, “I can’t really leave the stage”. Let’s hope that she doesn’t for a while yet. Photos courtesy of www.underexposed.org.uk

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