Visiting the UK for the first time since 2018, with her London show part of a tour taking in dates in Italy and France, Joan Osborne once more showed what a consummate performer she is. Still best known for her recording of ‘If God Was One Of Us’, from her first major label album “Relish” released in 1995, the Union Chapel was the perfect venue for her sensitive re-interpretation of the song, with the pulpit and Gothic stained glass rose window her backdrop.
Osborne opened her set with ‘I Should Have Danced More’ from her most recent 2023 album “Nobody Owns You”. Playing acoustic guitar, with Will Bryant on keys and backing vocals and Jim Boggia on guitar and backing vocals, it was a note to herself to have enjoyed the fun things in life, dancing , laughing and loving more. She followed this with ‘Highway 61 Revisited’ from her 2017 release “Songs of Bob Dylan”, a powerful rendition with Osborne trading guitar for tambourine before moving to her snare drum, keeping a regular shuffle with brushes, for ‘Wanna Be Loved’, her chilled version a contrast to the Muddy Waters’ original, from her Grammy-nominated album “Bring It On Home”, asking after the song finished, “Is that so wrong?“
Osborne maintained a close rapport with her audience throughout her set, introducing the title track of her recent album by telling us that her teenage daughter is “Beautiful and smart and funny and creative and warm and loving…to everyone but me,“ striking a chord with many parents in the audience. ‘Nobody Owns You’ is her attempt to provide the advice her daughter needs but won’t hear for now. “Nobody owns you/ Not the one who pays/ Or the mother who has given/you her yesterdays/ You’re as free as an October breeze/ And it’s time to get up off your knees/ Listen to me please/ Nobody owns you.”
She told us she is a firm believer in the role of music in these turbulent times, “Allowing us to maintain a sense of joy, with venues like the Union Chapel so important in allowing people to get together as fellow human beings sharing the experience of live music”, reflecting the sentiment of ‘Whole Wide World’, also from “Nobody Owns You”.
‘St Theresa’ from “Relish” was an opportunity for Osborne to show her fine dance moves to a backdrop of excellent flamenco style guitar from Boggia, while ‘Pensacola’ from the same album, was dusted off and reworked, Osborne told us, following a request from a long standing fan leading to a bluesy gospel feel.
Osborne and her band got a fine groove going for Dylan’s ‘Serve Somebody’, Osborne rocking out with Boggia, to close her set before picking up her guitar for her encore with ‘Lifeline’ from “Nobody Owns You”, a reflective ballad, before raising the tempo on ‘Take It Any Way I Can Get It’ from “Trouble and Strife”, a fine ending to a very fine set from Osborne and her classy band.
Support came from Alice Gold, who told us she had come from her bedroom writing and producing space to playing a big venue for the first time. A confident performer with lots of punky energy, she mixed raw synth sounds with electric guitar, and often eerie two-mic vocal effects. It will be interesting to see what emerges from a promised future recording project.
