Review: Jessie J, O2, London - Never knowingly under-wrought
Jessie J could do with ditching the sermons
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Your support makes all the difference.Are These Troubled Times bringing you down? Feeling lost, confused, powerless?
Well. Let Jessie 'Miyagi' J help you out. Never one to waste a costume change as she flits between various Gangsta Gatsby On Ice getups, tonight she fills the seconds between floaty-tailed gem-encrusted swimwear with helpful homilies.
"I can feel life," Jessie’s pouty, crop-haired face informs us on the first. "Here we are, born with no understanding, but with a gift to create our vision, our history, our legacy in this world."
Dear lord. But to be fair, if Jessie's never knowingly under-wrought powerhouse voice, her sentiments and the style of her songs often feel like they amount to little more than another spin of pop's cliche wheel, a woman who survived a stroke at 18 has more right to throw the carpe diems around than most.
And she's sure seizing tonight with both taloned fists; the 80s power-balladish "Thunder", second up, sees the effusive Ms J come second only to Homeland's Carrie Mathison in indomitable energy and alarming facial expressions. "Breathe" ups the edge with the sort of techy, brostep beats that bring a bite to recently released second album Alive often lacking on her debut, Who You Are.
She's moved beyond the pick 'n' mix genre grab-bag of that record too, forming a consistent, hard-edge, hollering sound with the likes of "LaserLight" and "Wild". Older tracks like "Do It Like A Dude", which becomes harder, Jessie splaying herself on the floor, knees apart like a goal-celebrating footballer/noodling guitar-hero to hammer home her point, and "Price Tag" (delivered with no fake departure for an encore - one hackneyed pop tradition Jessie can dispense with, refreshingly), which turns slinkier, with more torrential beats, are cleansed of their former naffness.
All in all, our Jessie's looking like the proper international pop star these days. And if her greeting-card philosophies are universal in the bad sense, she's still not without a bit of British cheek.
"This is my last message," she says before closing with the triumphant, Katy Perryish glammy guitar-pop of "It's My Party", glitter cannons and streamer bombs, to the delight of her past-bedtime tween devotees. "Whenever someone makes you feel like," she pauses, frowns. "'Serious, bruv?' Then what you do is, you take a few steps back from the person and do... this."
She mimes cocky, up-yours air guitar. There's something alive under all that guff, alright.
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