Scotland's finest in the heart of England - KT Tunstall

The Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon has turned over a new leaf, and the performance yesterday evening was both notable and superb.  It was the best performance that I have ever seen there.  Don't worry.  I am not learning to appreciate the skills of the thespian, but I do appreciate that the RSC is starting to allow its theatre to be used by true stars of contemporary music.

KT Tunstall is the first of those stars to perform there.  Unaccompanied, and with sheer mastery of a little technological wizardry she entertained and amused a packed theatre.  Shakespeare even got a mention, but KT was the star of the evening.

It was fascinating to see how she used a recording device at the beginning of many of the songs to record her own accompanying track either as a beat sequence or using her voice.  The way she made these little recordings seemed to be part of the introduction to the song.  The thing that most impressed me about that aspect of the performance was her mastery of the foot-switches to play the recordings back at exactly the right time to fit in with her performance.

Aside from that, she is an accomplished guitarist, has an incredibly rich and varied voice, and as my daughter said "she is absolutely gorgeous".

The selection of music included many of her well-known songs and a few new ones, with an emphasis on use of her acoustic guitars.  For the encore she finally brought out her electric guitars, and finished the evening with the piano.

What a pity that they sold out of the new EPs so quickly.  I had to visit her web site to buy a copy of The Scarlet Tulip instead.  (She was very proud of the fact that there are no logos and no bar codes on it.)  It is on its way to me now.  Can't wait to hear it all.