REVIEW | JENEVIEVE LIVE AT THE JAZZ CAFE LONDON

Going back to the gig; I’m usu­ally right at the front at Hip Hop gigs here, fully immersed in the artists’ energy, but this time I missed my spot. By the time I arrived at 8pm, the intim­ate Jazz Café space was already packed wall to wall with a diverse and excited crowd. With no warm-up sup­port act, the early part of the even­ing was filled with a buzz of sim­ul­tan­eous dis­cus­sions as the in-house DJ played a house music set that felt slightly out of sync with the mood and genre of the night, some­thing the crowd seemed non­chal­ant about as they chose con­ver­sa­tion over dan­cing — which is cool, the atmo­sphere remained warm and anticipatory.

Around 9pm, Jenevieve’s DJ took to her set up on stage with a more fit­ting selec­tion of new tracks remix­ing the sampled sounds of the 90s, and after a 15 minute build-up, the lights dropped.

Under the glow of a large glit­ter­ball, Jenevieve glided onto the stage to the intro and title track “Crysal­is”, dressed in flow­ing, funky tailored gar­ments, her curly afro’d bob framed her face as she held that mic con­fid­ently and stepped to the music as she swooned us, the crowd respon­ded instantly, drawn in by her calm, mys­ter­i­ous pres­ence as she shif­ted swiftly into the next track “Head Over Heels” I love-looove how this track ascends mid­way into anoth­er music­al zone.

The per­form­ance leaned toward a track-to-track format, mov­ing through the 14-track album, and while the back­ing tracks were famil­i­ar to any­one who knows the album, it would be excit­ing to see how a live band might add even more depth, giv­ing space for the tracks to evolve and Jenevieve to use this oppor­tun­ity to play with her artform.

With fans watch­ing in admir­a­tion through­out, standout moments came from the more-famil­i­ar-with-the-crowd tracks “Résumé,” “Haiku,” “Naïve,” and “HVN Sent” (one of my faves) where the audi­ence sang along with enthu­si­asm. Jenevieve did engage with the audi­ence at points, encour­aging sin­galongs dur­ing “Head Over Heels” and shar­ing a light­hearted spon­tan­eous side mid-Haiku when an audi­ence inter­ac­tion made her laugh, the crowd hap­pily step­ping in to carry the vocals as she got the giggles for a minute! Moments like these hin­ted at a deep­er con­nec­tion I’d encour­age her to explore fur­ther as she settles into tour life, some storytelling with insight into her jour­ney between songs has poten­tial to enhance the Jenevieve exper­i­ence fur­ther, and draw the audi­ence deep­er into her world.

I will give her grace to grow here, this indeed seems a Crysal­is moment, I think she is some­thing super, and so glad I got to see her at this stage of her career.

Jenevieve’s sound is undeni­ably ecstat­ic, retro-futur­ist­ic — clev­erly blend­ing 80s and 90s R&B and Hip Hop influ­ences with a famil­i­ar yet mod­ern edge through­out. Even her visu­al aes­thet­ic nods to that era, giv­ing her artistry a cohes­ive and dis­tinct­ive feel.

With a few bonus songs; “CaNdY LiEs” and “Medal­lion”, the gig wrapped up with the finale and pop­u­lar track “Baby Powder” (from her debut album Divi­sion) clos­ing the night on a high with a simple, sin­cere “Thank you” to Lon­don as she left the stage, the lights came up and the crowd filed out swiftly- which reminded me of 90s club nights when some people don’t want to be seen in the light ! — I think it was more about get­ting home to bed before work on Monday!
The last show I atten­ded here was Onyx so it is quite a con­trast, per­haps next time I’d be bet­ter sat upstairs tak­ing in the love of music over a din­ner date…! Over­all, a jam packed set­l­ist from an artist who con­tin­ues to blos­som. With a touch more live music­al­ity, and deep­er audi­ence con­nec­tion, her shows could become some­thing truly scrumptious!

Here are my Haikus to Jenevieve:
Jenevieve’s world tour
swooned the Jazz Café London
music­al delight!

This the crysalis?
I look for­ward to hearing…
but­ter­fly take flight !

Set­l­ist
1. Intro CRYSALIS
2. HEAD OVER HEELS (one of my favour­ites, the way mid­way it seg­ways to anoth­er level. Here Jenevieve encour­aged the crowd to join… slinky dance.
3. RESUMÉ (crowd knew song)
4. FLIGHT RISK
5. MEDAL­LION (album Division)
6. LOVE QUOTES
7. CaNdY LiEs (from EP Ren­dez­vous) reminded me of Biggie
8. IRON LUNG (BREATHE IN)
9. DAM­AGE CONTROL
10. HAIKU..got the giggles when she asked if someone has Nin­tendo and crowd helped out filling gaps (they knew song)
11. MISS­ING PERSONS
12. NAIVE
13. PARTYCRASHER
14. HVN SENT high crowd response & upbeat tune
15. me so high BABY POWDER she really got into it now! (Album Division)