Lily Allen, live at Notting Hill Arts Club, London, Thursday 4th May

This was Lily Allen’s first show, the start of a month-long residency at The Notting Hill Arts Club, whose website said to get down early and I took that seriously after my difficulties getting into Konono No1. I wasn’t that worried about it filling up with regular peeps—although her MySpace player has had a hammering—so much as the fact that the night might have been more of a promo piece for the industry and the broadsheets and suchlike and so half full by default even before the people willing to pay were considered. When I got there at opening time (six o’clock!) there was a sign on the door saying that there would be no guest list and there weren’t any queues so I had a walk around Notting Hill in the best sunshine of the year so far and then nursed a sorrily poured pint of Staropramen in the least trendy looking pub I could find. I went into the Arts Centre about seven (five pound in.) It's a good space; nothing too flash just the expected bad ‘photo exhibit’ on the walls and decent, clear, not overly loud sound outta the PA. The Yo Yo DJs played a bunch of popular and semi-popular hip-hop, funk and soul records whilst the place filled up. They also played “Werewolves of London” which sounded great and really danceable loud. All through this I was just feeling kinda awkward and knocking back two quid bottles of Brahma lager since I was there by myself.

By about nine the place had filled up about as full as it got, about two-hundred-and-fifty people. Amazingly they stopped letting people in before it became a hellish and unpleasant crush. There was a lot of girls there, probably out numbering the men, which I’m sure is a good sign of Lily’s mersh appeal. A funk band (whose name I’ve forgotten, sorry) played and they were OK except the male singer who was a bit like Jamiroquai with AIDS and was constantly exhorting people to dance. At one point he looked at me and said “you look like you want to dance” and I just shook my head. I didn’t get into rockunroll to take orders from you, pal. Then they finished and after about twenty minutes Lily Allen came on. She was backed by a bass player, a guy with a Nord Electro 2 and someone with an Apple laptop. The latter two were later described as “my producers.” There was only a need for the laptop feller as she was pretty much singing over backing tracks but I’m sure that she felt more comfortable with more people behind her. Lily was shorter than I thought she would be, but that’s always the way, and a little tuff looking, like she could smoke a pack of 20 Berkeley Menthol in 37 minutes. She announced that she was gonna do five songs as that was all she had ready and then she did them; “LDN”, “Nan You're a Window Shopper” (a comedy take on Fiddy), “Shame For You”, “Knock ‘Em Out” and “Smile” although that list might be wrong bcz I’d had a few and I’m trying to remember it two days later and I’m thick. She was great right from the start—nervously smiley and with phrasing very like her MP3s but that’s good bcz her phrasing is one of the best things them—but noticeably increased in confidence throughout, from worrying about vocal levels at the start to smoking tabs whilst singing by the end. For an encore she did “LDN” (which she pronounced “ell dee enn”) again with a bit more vocal extemporisation and without the Dizzee Rascal/Billy Squier drums that were dropped the first time she sang it (like on her mixtape.) The crowd knew all the songs from the first notes and were smiling and having fun. By the end of it I was sweating like a rapist. I went home pretty much straight after she’d played as I had work the next day so never saw if she did her promised DJ set. There were people queuing to get in as I left.

(Mixtape and MP3 links here.)