Midland Vibes

Eddi Reader took the long and winding road to success. Having worked part-time at Sirocco Recording Studio in Kilmarnock, she responded to an advert for a backing vocalist for Gang of Four. This started her journey to solo success. Having undertaken a US tour for the group, she left shortly afterwards and started lending her distinctive vocal to radio jingles alongside working as a backing vocalist for everyone from The Eurythmics to Alison Moyet. After a period in Paris, she signed a record deal with EMI and released two singles with Outbar Squeek, before a fateful meeting with Mark E. Nevin lead to birth of Fairground Attraction. What followed was a brief explosion into the mainstream, with a #1 charting single and a Brit Award for their debut album. However, arguments within the band and a shift in focus following the birth of her eldest, lead to the group to disband ahead of a rush released sophomore album. Via a foray into acting, she launched a solo career, which has seen her receive acclaim ever since.

While Fairground Attraction reunited and launched a stunning new album just a couple of years ago, Reader is once again out on the road on a new journey of healing. Having lost her husband, John Douglas, earlier this year, she is out to celebrate their love, their musical collaborations and to share their memories with her adoring and very loyal audience.

Before she takes centre stage at the lovely Garrick Theatre in Lichfield, rising Scottish folk singer Miwa Nagato-Apthorp takes to the stage to showcase material from her debut EP, Noren. Having won Best Acoustic at the Scottish Alternative Music Awards (SAMA), Nagato-Apthorp is a playful, soothing presence, whose material does not shy away from complex subject matters - migration, loss and historic complexities - but is still easily digestible in it's delivery. With a truly pure vocal, the set is nothing short of divine, and the song Abigail, about the loss a close friend, clearly hits the audience at their core with many a tear shed in shared simultaneous joy and heartache.

After a brief interlude, in which the wait to meet and greet Nagato-Apthorp proved the most popular destination, Eddi Reader takes to the stage alongside Alan Kelly, Kevin McGuire and Boo Hewerdine, before highlighting her thanks for the support she has received since the loss of her John, who joins her on stage in photographic form. What follows is a truly perfect set.

Without a set list, Reader gauged the response of the audience, alongside her own whims to craft a set that took in her own back catalogue, Boo Hewerdine and John Douglas' solo works and her recent recordings for her collaborative album Eddi & John. From the poignancy of Lost, the dreaminess of Dragonflies to the magical moment Edith Piaf 'enters the stage' for Fairground Attraction, the set delivers a little something for everyone, but above all else, it gifts the purest of personal connections in touching personal stories that really move.

As the set culminates with the inevitable inclusion of Perfect and a closing moment of Find My Love, the audience reward Reader and her bandmates with an extended applause, which she has truly earned.