Another week, another Coffee House Session and another location!
Just when you thought that there was an established routine of listening to some live music in Student Central, someone breaks the news to you that Coffee House Sessions have relocated to the Atrium in Richmond building for this week – hey ho, a bit of exercise never hurt anyone, so I hot footed it over to the Atrium to get a good spot.
This week’s gig was the lovely JoAnna Lee, who came all the way from the United States to do a cheeky Coffee House Tour to promote her new album So Free.
Musically, JoAnna’s music had a Jack Johnson kind of feel on the guitar. Once she began singing, you could hear that JoAnna was suffering from a cold and had a sore throat. Luckily for her, us, and everyone else watching/listening, it didn’t seem to interfere with her music too much and she had some lovely vocal melodies.
Even though the guitars had a nice feel, the set did start to feel a bit samey half way through. The songs all kind of blended in to one another with nothing really standing out – if she’d have played all the songs back to back without a break, you could have been forgiven for thinking it was just one very long song.
For her last song she really stepped it up to begin with getting my hopes up for a cracking finale before reverting back to the same tempo as all the other songs… It was called Biggest Regret – which is pretty much how I felt about bothering to take the chilly walk from Student Central to the Atrium in the first place!
No, actually that’s a bit harsh. Overall, JoAnna’s set was good but was craving for a bit of variety and experimentation. Watch it back now and see if you agree:
After the set she spoke to RamAir, and complimented the University of Bradford of having a ‘really nice campus’ and that everyone here is ‘really nice’. She admitted that she is not used to playing to students, but instead, usually performs to crowds of all ages.
Her album So Free was released in 2017, and is a collection of songs from growing up, a reflection of relationships, love, friendship, heartbreak, and everything else that has happened up to this point in her life. It’s available to listen to now on Spotify and Deezer.
When it came to the all important question “pineapple on pizza?”, she responded with ‘yes’. Another victory for #teampineapple!
Songs: 2/5
Sound: 3/5
Atmosphere in the Atrium: 5/5
Author: Doug Schulz
RamAir student radio legend Doug is currently doing is PhD at Bradford after completing his undergraduate in Sociology and a MA in Peace Studies.
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