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Support comes in the form of VV Brown, who whips
through some of the highlights of her album in a workwomanlike way
having toured it non-stop this year, and from those cute Danish
upstarts Alphabeat. As an ice cool Stine and her puppy dog
co-vocalist Anders coo their way through the familiar Boyfriend, The
Spell and, of course, Fascination, the 650 people present start to
settle in ahead of the big event to come.
In a week in which London has played host to single-monikered divas
Beyoncé and Rihanna, Alexandra Burke still needs her
surname. She's clearly not in their league, and that's as it
should be. As with Leona Lewis and JLS, those other
current successes borne of The X-Factor, a lot of adulation and
expectation has been placed upon her - but on the basis of meagre material. The
talent show has proven that it can send an act straight to the higher
reaches of the charts, but hasn't yet had the opportunity to
demonstrate for how long it can keep them flying.
After the acoustic guitar backing of VV Brown's set, and the whole
band present for Alphabeat, there's no hiding the fact that
Alexandra's going to do this with a backing track. She appears on
stage with an entourage of just two backing singers and two dancers.
Dangerous, the upbeat b-side to recent number one hit Bad Boys, kicks
things off, showcasing a voice in good form.
The dancers retreat for her to sing They Don't Know, one of the
better ballads from her only recently released (and much delayed) album.
And then her backing vocalists disappear, leaving her to command the
stage for an emotional performance of The Silence. It leaves her tearful
as she sees some of her fans singing the words back to her.
She's generally very emotional; with a lot of family
present, this is a big night for her, and she comes across as
charming but nervous. As she paces the stage, almost turning into a
stand-up comic at one point as she asks where everyone's from, her mum
shouts at her to stop "waffling on". Endearingly she mishears and
nonsensically responds, "yes, I'm muffling on". She comes across as
sweet and good-natured, and as someone genuinely doing what she has
always dreamed of. And which singer wouldn't dream of headlining the Union Chapel?
From here on though, the set loses its way. As much as it's
good to not feel as though an act is simply hawking their album at you, the
next four songs are all covers, and the only one of them that appears on the
album is her winner's song, Hallelujah. An occasionally faulty
sound system pumps out the backing for Oleta Adams's Get Here,
The Jackson 5's I'll Be There and Beyoncé's Listen. As it
happens, Hallelujah turns out to be the set's highlight as she gets an
actual real live musician to strum his guitar along with her, but the
overall effect is that it's turned into a superior karaoke session.
We know she's a good singer. We've seen her on The X-Factor; she won it.
This doesn't need to be proven. Tonight she would have done better to show off
more of her original material. As she closes with Bad Boys, and her bad boy dancers
come back on, it feels like a missed opportunity to demonstrate more than
just her voice.
These sessions continue to get a superb roll call of stars and
stars-in-the-making who all perform in aid of Mencap for no fee. As
with many of the others appearing this year, at this moment Alexandra
has the power to focus some attention on the charity's efforts. But
singing along to old songs surely isn't what she has in mind for her
career in the long term. She can, and will need to, do better.
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