Elle King has been carving out a country career for herself since the release of her debut album ‘Love Stuff’ in 2015, which featured her breakthrough double platinum single ‘Ex’s And Oh’s’. Since then she’s gone on to release a further two albums – most recently 2023’s ‘Come Get Your Wife’ – and has worked with the likes of Dierks Bentley and Miranda Lambert. This week she’s been over in the UK performing as part of C2C festival, including a set at the O2 on the final night of the weekend.
Dressed all in black and sporting a sharp pair of sunglasses, whilst accompanied by her three-piece band, King opened her set with ‘Out Yonder’ from ‘Come Get Your Wife’. It’s a slinky, swampy number with plenty of twang and suited her gravelly, smoky vocals very well, as well as giving her a chance to bring out the belt in her voice on the biting chorus. She followed that with ‘Chain Smoking, Hard Drinking, Woman’, which featured a pulsing beat, some great slide guitar and a sultry, swaggering lyric before breaking into a driving chorus.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, most of the set was taken from ‘Come Get Your Wife’, including ‘Tulsa’ with its stomping rhythm and rocky touches that saw King deliver the lyrics with her sharp tongue firmly in her cheek, and the soaring ‘Worth A Shot’ which had a surprisingly sweet feeling to it. I also really liked her spin on ‘Jersey Giant’, as written by Tyler Childers, which showed off the gentler side of her voice alongside a jangly, bright melody that contrasted the bittersweet lyrics.
However, for me King shone particularly on the softer songs from the record, including ‘Lucky’ – a loving, heartfelt tribute to her toddler son that was full of warmth and affection – and ‘Love Go By’, a sparse track about not being able to let go of a toxic lover that wouldn’t have sounded out of place on an Amy Winehouse album. These types of songs really allow her to showcase her distinctive voice in full force and you can feel the raw, earnest quality dripping from every note that comes out of her mouth.
That said, there was still much for fans of King’s older songs to enjoy. ‘America’s Sweetheart’ rattled along at a clip with King delivering fire and defiance in space as she oozed self-confidence and embraced her flaws, particularly on the soaring chorus, and ‘Ex’s And Oh’s’ had a playful, flirtatious feel as King jammed out with her band to fuzzy guitars and rattled her tambourine. Elsewhere, her cover of Tom Petty and Stevie Nicks’s ‘Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around’, which she duetted on with her guitarist, had a grungy, down-and-dirty vibe and an almost pleading quality to her vocals.
King closed her set with a rowdy rendition of the anthemic ‘Drunk (And I Don’t Wanna Go Home)’, which saw her bring out Spotlight Stage artist Lily Rose to join her. They put on a powerful performance and lifted the energy of the crowd, encouraging them to sing along, before King finished up with ‘Little Bit Of Lovin’’ from her sophomore album ‘Shake The Spirit’. The mellow, bluesy vibe of the track had a quiet assurance from King, emphasised her huskier tones as her vocals glided over the melody before bursting into a growl. It really highlighted the range of her vocals and was a solid end to the hour-long set.
Overall Elle King produced a vocally strong performance with plenty of sass and soul, as well as great versatility throughout and just a touch of the edginess she’s become known for in the music industry. However, whilst there’s no doubt she can absolutely deliver as a singer, for me the set lacked a little in energy and the sound issues at the start didn’t help. It wasn’t bad by any means but I felt it was slightly missing the fun vibes that a set like this needed. Maybe it was nerves, maybe just running out of steam at the end of a long weekend. But she definitely has the musical chops to be up on that stage and I really hope this isn’t the last time we’ll see her over in the UK.
Set list: 1. Out Yonder 2. Chain Smoking, Hard Drinking, Woman 4. Tulsa 5. Jersey Giant 6. America’s Sweetheart 7. Worth A Shot 8. Lucky 9. Ex’s And Oh’s 10. Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around (Tom Petty and Stevie Nicks cover) 11. Love Go By 12. Drunk (And I Don’t Wanna Go Home) (with Lily Rose) 13. Little Bit Of Lovin’ Performance date: 10th March 2024
