With the sound of Jake Morell wafting its way from the Big Entrance stage, it was time for Mollie-Anne to take to the ICON stage. One of the acts we had been most looking forward to at C2C based on our pre festival research, with her song "In Your Dreams" ( sadly not played today ) proving a particular favourite
With a Double Bass player and her Dad on Cajon she announced herself with an "Alright London" before starting with the upbeat opener "A San Francisco Story", with references to "flowers in our hair", this was probably more at the folky end of her spectrum.
Locations were to play a role in the opening three songs, for the second we stayed in California for "Corona Del Mar" inspired by a summer spent there, it was noticeable that the bass player was permanently smiling and why not this was music to enjoy whether playing or listening to.. Molly-Anne was great company a strange mixture of nervousness and yet with a steely professionalism that would seem to make such worries needless.
The travels continued as we returned to Cornwall for "Polperro" which was inspired while taking a walk. This was atmospheric stuff helped by Molly-Anne's contributions on harmonica, and her exceptional vocals which had a pure and powerful quality to them. "Take Me Home Tonight" followed in a similar vein, though slightly upping the pace and it also showed some stage confidence as Molly-Anne got the crowd singing along on the chorus. Molly-Anne had an inate ability to drift across genres and yet seem at home in all of them, "Bright Eyes" was more of a gentle engaging pop song whereas her version of "Jolene", which obviously went down well with the assembled throng, was a slightly speeded up version with the warm double bass sound prominent.. At all times entertaining, "Wild Heart" was a piece of folk rock while the closer, the country jig of "Talkin' 'bout Something" was a lovely song on which to close.
Such is the ying and yang of showbusiness that Molly-Anne's gig list will read, last weekend The O2, this weekend North Nibley Village Hall !!
With further dates in March coming in Portsmouth & Taunton now is a great time to catch with this emerging talent.