Day 4: "Fires" - Nerina Pallot (2005)

I used to work with a girl who was a champion trampolinist.  Trampoliner?  Regardless, when she was younger, she bounced and flipped on high tension tarpaulin so well she won European medals for it before the strain of all that jumping destroyed her knees by the time she was 22, ending her competitive bouncing career.  She was also incredibly petite, we're talking Kylie Minogue levels of tinyness here.  When she was told she could no longer Trampoline, she took up free climbing instead.

She's the reason I own this album.

Listen to me here

We both worked similar jobs in different institutions; junior, brainless, and stressful, neither of us were happy with where our life choices had landed us in terms of our vocations.  We had spoken a few times by phone, back in the day when it was actually preferable to phone someone to deal with a problem rather than email them in the hopes that you can get through another working day without being forced to interact with any human beings, and those phone calls and subsequent emails had led to us spending more and more time just in small talk, rather than actually working.  I was at the tail end of a disintegrating long distance relationship at the time, and she was willing to be my sounding board for how I felt.  If you think you can see this story heading in a predictable direction, you're wrong - she was engaged to be married at the time (I was actually an usher at her wedding) and I needed an emotionally supportive friend far more then than I did some casual fling.  I don't think I ever thought of her that way, only now thinking about it does is become apparent how much we managed to dodge the Hollywood cliche.

She knew I was a huge music fan at the time.  I'd talk to her about going to gigs, and we'd talk about music together as I did with everyone back then - there was a long period in my life when my first impressions of someone would be heavily slanted by my approval or not of their music tastes.  When people said to me "Oh, I don't really like music", I assumed they were soulless alien creatures and did my best to avoid them.  I still find it baffling that someone might not enjoy any music at all, but I have become more tolerant of the Pod People amongst us in my old age.

One afternoon, I can't say exactly when apart from it was a weekday (because I was at work) and not a Friday, I got an email from my friend.  Her, her husband-to-be, and a friend were going to see Bryan Adams at Manchester Arena, their fourth person had dropped out and they had a spare ticket.  They didn't want any money for it, and if I could get to Manchester that night the ticket was mine.

Now Bryan Adams isn't exactly the kind of act I would pay money to go and see.  But if you wave a free gig in my face, especially one where I thought "you know what, I bet Bryan Adams does a kick ass live show", I'm probably going to bite.  I clocked out of my office at 4pm, jumped in my car, and drove across the Pennines on a whim to see Bryan Adams.

I made it with about 15 minutes to spare before doors opened, wolfed down some terrible fast food, met my friend and her party, and we went to take our seats.

Nerina Pallot was the support act.

This must have been around 2001, as she was touring to promote her debut album, and she said before she started playing that she'd never played to an arena of people before.  She was earnest, and nervous, and it was just her and a piano and a drummer, playing wistful piano songs to a huge arena full of Bryan Adams fans, and she was great.  I remember being blown away by her, and I wasn't the only one I am sure, as the audience was drawn in more and more.  I wrote the name of her album on my arm with a pen from my office at work I found in my pocket so I could go out and buy it that weekend.

In case you are wondering, Bryan Adams does indeed put on a hell of a live show.  Scoff all you want, the guy has some serious live chops, and you probably know 15 more Bryan Adams songs than you think you do.  I ended up seeing him live three different times.  I even paid for one of those gigs.

Anyway, I remember "Dear Frustrated Superstar", her debut, was impossible to find.  I ended up ordering it from a small indie record shop in London after checking Sheffield and Chesterfield and Manchester for copies of it.  Irritatingly, I don't see it in my CD collection now, so I assume its one of those strays which disappeared in my many home moves and irresponsible lendings.  Regardless, I liked the album when it came, and I assumed Nerina Pallot was going to be a star, was going to be all over the radio, and that I had got in on the ground floor of a new musical sensation.

I was half right.

What actually happened was that she sank into obscurity for four years.  I don't recall the circumstance which led to me hearing "Everyone's Gone To War", because it was getting play in the kind of venues and radio stations which weren't part of my usual preferred listening.  Maybe it was just so ubiquitous that I was bound to hear it at some point.  Regardless, I remember some radio DJ signing the song off, which I'd been listening to with some interest, with "...and that was Nerina Pallot" and being stunned.  I figured after "Dear Frustrated Superstar" had gone nowhere, that would be the end of her.  Instead, she was a phoenix, risen from the ashes.

So I went out and bought Fires, almost sight unseen, having heard only one song off it a handful of times.  Weirdly, I kind of felt I owed her that much.

Listening back to it this morning made me think about some things - about how hard it is to be young and talented and driven, but in the face of you being one of, say, twenty already successful just-a-girl-an-a-piano-singing-emotional-songs.  How on earth do you break through, make yourself seen and successful in the face of a genre which doesn't lend itself to a lot of individuality?  I assume its just a combination of luck and persistence, hanging on until either you get some radio play, yout song is used in a commercial or tv show and a spark hits you. and you're propelled into the zeitgeist.

"Fires" is a fine album, and I mean that not in a pejorative or as an expression of praise;  it's a talented young woman writing pleasant, sometimes ham fisted in terms of their message, but otherwise lovely songs.  "Damascus" is probably the best of the bunch, and is certainly the one that stuck in my head - but ultimately for me its never more than something pleasant, and diverting, but not memorable.  I'm glad she made it, and I think she's very talented, but in a world of infinite music, I don't know what other circumstance apart from this blog would lead me to revisit this album in the future.