Paloma Faith live at Hampton Court

Paloma Faith live at Hampton Court Palace, London (20.6.2024)

I thought I’d try this one. Never seen a gig at Hampton Court before and I’ve never seen Paloma Faith live. She sounded like she would be interesting though, and she was.

All a bit of a picnic before hand. We sat on a bench with a few cans, Aldi Cheddars and tuna rolls. Not quite the checked rug and Prosecco idea that most seem to have. I don’t think I could have got up if we’d have sat on the grass – knee still in a removable support and the walk from the car park about as much as I could ‘enjoy’… but it’s a beautiful evening.

Not sure if the people here are Paloma Faith fans? Not a t-shirt in sight. T-shirts a bit scruffy for this lot. I can’t see the UK Subs playing here. The stage is right inside a courtyard and the view below is one side of that courtyard – we enter via that gateway, having already wandered through cloisters surrounding an ornate grassed square. The artists that play here really are  playing inside a Royal Palace.

The stage backdrop is more Palace – a lit outer wall. Paloma Faith and her band including two backing singers take to the stage as planned at 9pm. No support band.

There’s an instant directness about the audience rapport. Paloma just chats to the audience as if she’s at the school gates picking up her kids – her dress far from down to earth and she occasionally wrestles with that to keep it covering what she needs.

After a handful of songs with the audience seated, she gets everyone up – I mean everyone, bar the injured, yes even me. She dashes to stage left and right, up the step and behind the drums, round to the piano and indeed onto the piano – belting out her songs as she goes.

I won’t pretend to know the songs by name. I picked up a few second hand CDs a few months back and wife Sally bought the recent album, so there is some familiarity.

Between songs Paloma relishes that bit as her time. There are a lot of references to her recent break up and lazy, useless men generally – we take it – keep yer heads down. She does point out that her expectations are high and suggests that she might be a nightmare to live with. I suspect she may be right – she won’t let this theme go, not this tour anyway. Eat Shit and Die is a notable low, or is it high, point of this mood. Maybe it was this one where she gave the one finger salute as she paraded. The set seems to be her therapy.

Paloma kicks off her shoes and chucks them up the back of the stage, then ups the pace of her dancing and hair shaking into the fan – loads of energy and this aging crowd does its bit to respond, on the uneven cobbled floor covered in tightly packed metal framed plastic chairs.

Singalong favourites near the end, at last drowning out the occasional sound of overhead Heathrow jets – these throw Paloma earlier when she thinks it’s a sound problem. Welcome to the west London suburbs – this is the sound of the suburbs eh.

She is a great entertainer and I’m glad I made it to this one. I’ve listened to her on the radio, on the chat shows, Saturday Kitchen and the like but it’s her live on stage where it’s best to hear her out.

There’s a bit of old school showtime about it but with a  modern gritty take, all with a load of infectious irreverence.

She asks how long left. Waving arms from the wings. She’s over time. She questions whether the Palace dwellers need to sleep yet and gives it the finger – “stuff the curfew – this one’s for John Lydon”: time for a last song.

This one’s a national treasure… and I don’t mean the Palace.