Judie Tzuke Live at Òran Mór.

I had no idea what to expect when I headed out to see Judie Tzuke live at Òran Mór last night but I quickly got a rough idea of her fan-base because the aroma of slightly too liberally applied perfume was hanging over the audience when I arrived at the venue (from what I could detect I’d hazard a guess at Yves Saint Laurent’s Rive Gauche).

This audience was chiefly constructed of middle-class, middle-aged women all cramped together in a confined space with the odd serious looking man scattered amongst them observing their actions, so it was a bit like going for a night out with the cast of ‘Tenko’.

There was also an abundance of pashminas, something which didn’t surprise me in the slightest as if I had to describe Tzuke’s music then the expression “sonic pashmina” would be the only two words I would need (that isn’t a criticism incidentally). In fact, there were so many around me I started to worry they were compulsory and that I might be forcibly ejected for violating an unspoken dress code.

My friend was also having a bit of a panic attack as he suddenly realised he had forgotten his ear plugs, although I gently reassured him that if he suffered permanent hearing loss from listening to ‘Stay With Me Till Dawn’ that he’d be a medical first.

The lights dimmed, the pashminas fluttered in excitement and Judie came on stage, her flowing black dress, voluminous blonde hair and soothingly smooth voice giving her an aura I can only define as “Stevie Nicks on Ovaltine”.

Now I’m not the world’s biggest Judie Tzuke expert (I’m more of a Peter Brötzmann’s Machine Gun kinda person myself) but I’m familiar enough with her work to know there’s more to her than that big hit and that nestled away within her 25 albums there’s some immaculately crafted, gorgeously performed and appealingly produced numbers.

My only disappointment was the lack of drum kit with Tzuke leaning entirely into her softer songs. This was understandable (it makes touring easier and more cost efficient for one) but I always preferred the more energetic Tzuke, something best illustrated on the excellent track ‘Sukarita’ or her criminally underrated album ‘I Am the Phoenix’.

This also meant the crowd never came close to being worked up into a bacchanalian orgy of frenziedly debauched eroticism, but Tzuke’s music has (thankfully) never been about that and if there was even the vaguest spectre of sexual frisson sizzling in the audience it’s what I’d classify as “suburban lust” — i.e. when a married couple believes an evening of red-hot passion is going down on each other whilst breaking out the Thorntons.

All in all in was a lovely, sweet and rather endearing evening and everybody went home very happy. It was the exact opposite of Altamont.