Concert Review: Marmalade at Wine Cellar, 24 June 2021

Tangerine trees and Marmalade skies! It’s the debut of this brand-new young Auckland band, and they have a ball tonight at our favourite underground haunt, the Wine Cellar.

They are Jemilah Ross-Hayes lead vocal and guitar, Koen Aldershof bass, Liam lead guitar and Sam on drums.

A punchy Indie-Pop band, tight and together on an impressive first performance. The first thing that strikes me is Jemilah’s big voice. Without affectation and rides above the band sound. She is tiny, and that’s saying something as all three women singers tonight are diminutive. Turn down the fog-horn of Helen Shapiro and you have an idea.

Sweetheart and the unadorned voice sounds Old English Folk before they change pace and kick it into Hard Pop.

They are all members of other bands, current or past. Shows in their chops, and the discipline they bring as they race through the set.

Sundays and a funky rhythm opens into a spare Power Pop firecracker. Trying to pretend you don’t like me.

Don’t look at me like that, Danielle. There is some of the sensibility of the early Blondie. Debbie Harry also started as a Folkie. A companion song to Denis.

Ringing guitar riffs opens Houston and they work it up into a good dance number with some Two-Tone Ska swing.

Tastes like strawberry on a summer evening. That’s Watermelon. Bouncy and tough like the halcyon days of Bubblegum.

Twangy Country-Rock and Stone Roses shimmers from the lead guitar.

All the songs written in the course of a few short months, that which fell together in living-room sessions.

Ob-La-Di Ob-La-Da. Sprinkle some magic Beatle dust and out they come.

Manuela

Manuela Ovale Herrera is another pint-size singer with a big voice, and has the most impressive range of the three artists tonight. I have described her as Spanish Janis Joplin before. The Wine Cellar seems to bring out the best in her.

She begins solo, playing an acoustic guitar. She’ll Never Know has her as a Soul-singing thrush with piercing high vocals and blues phrasing bringing to mind the great Minnie Ripperton.

Maybe Someday. She has a playful Jazz touch, can mine the swings of emotions and pivot into plaintive and vulnerable on a coin. Masterful in a similar sense to Janis Joplin. The guitar plays close to a steel slide tone.

Great band with her. Jono Mayer guitar, Josh Johnston drums and Dean Rodriguez five-string bass.

Manuela is Colombian by birth, Kiwi by up-bringing, and puts some Brazilian rhythms into a few of her songs.

Can’t Make Up My Mind and Running Out are jazzy and sassy with a Bossa Nova rhythm. Great when the bass guitar picks it up and throbs through the floor.

Hoping to Find opens with syn-drums and heralds some Latin Funk and Jazz guitar. Spanish Rap, and what exactly is dabbing?

Te Vas translates as Piss Off! Lead drums on the set closer.

Grace Kelly

Grace looks a bit like the good period Lindsay Lohan, sings with a remarkable Country voice and has an irresistible stage presence that reminds me of Benee when I first saw her as a newbie. She is solo with an acoustic guitar, has the manner of a seasoned veteran and is only just eighteen!

Already a star of sorts. Spent some time in the United States. Opened for Blake Shelton. Wrote a song, San Jose, which got picked up by the Tourism Board there and made into an ad campaign. Wow! For a sixteen-year-old.

Played tonight possibly as a special request as it’s not on the set-list. It’s Country and it swings and it has the Honky-Tonk sass of Loretta Lynn.

Opening numbers give you a good idea of her range. Candy Cigarette and Gives You Hell. A classic big female Country voice, with perfect trade-mark chokes.

Turns Lorde’s Royals into Country-Pop with some nice phrasing. Does stand out as a superlatively written Pop song.

Does a similar transformation of Kate Perry’s The One That Got Away.

Writes her own songs and again, she seems to be channelling an older spirit with the quality.

My Boyfriend Hates Country Music. Classic title. Country Rockabilly. Brash-voiced and talented like Brenda Lee, who also played support for the early incandescent Elvis. Not as short, though.

Tasty Marmalade, Hot Latin Joplin and Good Ol’ Mountain Dew.

Rev Orange Peel

Click any image to see a full sized gallery of the show.