REVIEW: Katie Melua & Gori Women’s Choir @ Assembly Rooms

In a silver dress for the Thursday night in Scotland Katie Melua gives a rather golden performance at the Edinburgh Assembly Rooms, marking the last stretch of her, already extended, 2018 European tournée. With her husband James in the audience the room’s jam-packed!

Born in the Georgian city of Kutaisi, Katie and her family immigrated to Belfast when she was 9 years old. She has released 7 studio albums to date and is one of the highest-selling female recording artists of all time.

This year, joined by the outstanding Gori (Georgia) Women’s Choir with its eastern folk ambience and warmth, a cast of smooth instrumentalists in the shapes of Tim Harries (double bass), Mark Edwards on keyboards, Nicky Hustinx on drums, and brother Zurab Melua on guitar- the performance fills up the Scotch space with its Ultimate Collection of Melua’s best and a few covers, testing its acoustics to the max.

Christmassy mood with Katie’s arrangement of Johni Mithell’s River achieved, Shirley Bassey’s Diamond’s Are Forever strikes the Bond mode slickly and Black’s Wonderful Life lifts the morale. The choir tingles the hearts with delightful and soul-felt expression of The Little Swallow and Nine Million Bicycles reminds it all well what makes a hit song.

Katie, the choir, the band and atmospheric visuals on screen make it all smooth operation. Is it the peak of the tour’s final endeavours? Not entirely sure. Certainly a moment to hark back to.

Three standing ovations bring the show to a close with Sting’s Fields of Gold recorded in 2017 as the Children In Need single and Louis Armstrong’s What a wonderful world – rather inspiring conclusion…

Mellow Melua..? Humble and stunningly so!