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 Joss Stone performs for a less than sold-out crowd at the Kool Haus Saturday night. (Dave Abel, Sun Media) |
TORONTO - Now three albums in, Joss Stone's latest record apparently is her way of reintroducing herself to the public. However, basically shunning her first two albums isn't the best way to go about things, especially in a live setting.
Although Stone's performance Saturday evening at the Kool Haus had its moments, her reluctance to go back and mine more material from The Soul Sessions and Mind, Body & Soul resulted in a decent but far from outstanding set that clocked in at just over an hour.
Aided by a tight 10-piece supporting cast including two horn players and three backing vocalists, the 20-year-old Stone got things started with the feel-good, party-starting Girl They Won't Believe It. But Stone's signature powerful, hair-raising pipes took a while to warm up, coming to life occasionally during Headturner and Jet Lag.
"Hello, how are you feeling? Really, that's it?" Stone asked the far from sold-out crowd who also took a while to warm up. Fortunately, the singer took things up a notch with Super Duper Love (Are You Diggin On Me?) Pt. 1 from 2003's The Soul Sessions. Cupping her ear and holding the microphone out caused a give-and-take with the audience singing along.
But Stone still sensed that things weren't exactly gelling. "There's only one of me and I'm making a f--k of a lot of noise," she said soon afterwards. From there, she churned out the melodic soul ditty Tell Me What We're Gonna Do Now from the new album, which garnered a great reaction.
Stone, who played a last-minute show in January at The Docks while rehearsing for this tour, is often at her best when pushing herself to the limit with Joplin-like wails. Following a funky groove that fuelled the slower but solid Music (Outro), the singer let loose during Put Your Hands On Me as Stone ended the catchy number with a big smile and bangs hiding her eyes.
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Perhaps the biggest high of the show was the combination starting with Bruised But Not Broken that had her hitting the softer notes delicately while reaching deep for a big, beautiful finish. And after taking a few moments to braid her hair, Stone delivered another quality performance during the horn-accented Bad Habit.
Yet with plenty of original material and a healthy dose of covers -- she's known for such as Son of a Preacher Man and The White Stripes' Fell in Love With a Boy -- Stone finished her main set with Tell Me 'Bout It, one of the better songs off Introducing Joss Stone. The track also had each of the 10 backing musicians giving a mini solo, with guitarist Raphael Saadiq looking like a youthful and dapper Ike Turner.
Coming back for the encore, Stone had a brief fit of the giggles prior to Right to be Wrong which displayed more of her pipes. Fans left content but a few more songs certainly wouldn't have hurt.
Opening up for Stone, and darn near upstaging her, was 26-year-old Georgia native Ryan Shaw. Shaw's stellar 45-minute set was an old-school mix of soul in the vein of Sam Cooke, Wilson Pickett and Otis Redding with highlights being the infectious, groovy Nobody and We Got Love.