Soul headliner Nutini delivers
Had the original co-headline billing of Paolo Nutini and fellow Brit-soul singer Amy Winehouse gone on as originally planned, the atmosphere at the Orpheum on Saturday would've undoubtedly been supercharged rather than just pleasant. The fascinating Ms. Winehouse canceled, however, leaving Nutini shouldering the spotlight.
Dressed in a nondescript floppy jacket and jeans, his hair an unstylish mop that obscured much above the neck, Nutini looked as much an oddity as the decadently stylized Winehouse. He's hardly a matinee hero, but the girls in the audience screamed and shimmied as the small, hunched Scottish lad channeled heartache and longing into neat pop nuggets. All Nutini had to do was repeat the hardly subtle line, "I love you more and more and more," in the sentimental opening song "Alloway Grove," which thankfully had a gutsy rockabilly beat, and the audience was on its feet connecting to Nutini's needy declaration.
Backed by a lean mean guitar, bass, and drums, Nutini cleverly infused his set with diverse flavors. There was the bluesy honky tonk of "New Shoes," the slow samba "Running on Empty," and the country flavored "55 to 1," a simple, sweet song on which Nutini's quivering, raspy voice shone.
Nutini put a sunny spin on Vera Hall's Moby-favored spiritual "Trouble So Hard," which had an intoxicating rock-steady beat. And he added a powerful version of the Sonny Bono penned Cher hit, "Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down)."
A month into this tour, and with nearly another one to go, Nutini looked pleased. He muttered amiably in between songs, his soft Scottish lilt as undetermined as his singing was effortlessly powerful. It wasn't difficult to hear what the late Ahmet Ertegun heard when he signed the 20-year-old to Atlantic Records. That Nutini grinned throughout the performance and finished with the lighthearted country ditty "Funky Cigarette" seemed to say this slacker soulman isn't sweating anything.
Midwestern singer and pianist Jon McLaughlin swooned and pounded his way through a strong soul pop set, while opener Serena Ryder, a plucky Canadian pop singer-songwriter, added an earthy spin.
