Monday, June 27, 2022

Ellie Finnerty @ The Gresham House Inn, Sunday 26th June 2022

Had the great pleasure of catching up with Ellie again during an all too brief return home between a season entertaining holiday makers in Dorset and a stint on a cruise ship pottering around the Med. As with the last time we caught her set Ellie picked classics from the last 7 decades or so and sprinkled in some gems of her own including Generation Jaded (a sorry tale of the perils of internet dating…don’t do it) and Screen (all about following an ex’s social media life and wondering about the life she could have had with ‘em…I reckon she’s better off cruising the Med myself).

It’s a really encouraging sign when your audience calls out for one of your originals - as they did with the aforementioned Screen - rather than a cover and it really doesn’t take a huge leap of imagination to see Ellie belting it out in front of a huge festival crowd. There are plenty of great singers out there but Ellie has a seemingly natural ability to really ‘sell’ a song, to make you believe in what she’s singing, and that’s something a lot rarer. Particularly impressive this afternoon was Ellie’s soulful cover of That’s Life and an emotional Hey Jude which got The Gresham enthusiastically “Na Na Na Na Na Na Naaaaa”-ing. Who needs Glasto eh? 

With the dark days of lockdowns hopefully behind us and at least side one of that self-penned debut album stuffed with catchy singalong hits in waiting who knows how far Ellie might go now…maybe
to…wait for it…in-Finnerty and beyond (sorry, can’t recent a pun…blame the pints of Devon Scrumpy).

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