On her last tour Rebecca Lucy Taylor – or Self Esteem as she is better known on stage – were playing small venues like Stockton’s Georgian Theatre and Newcastle’s Wylam Brewery. This time out they are effortlessly selling out two thousand plus capacity halls around the country.

At the Sage last Saturday, her Mercury Prize nominated ‘Prioritise Pleasure’ album took pride of place in her set, and rightly so as it is an absolute gem. A challenging, gutsy, empowering album that has hit a real chord of familiarity with her mainly – at Saturday’s show anyway – female audience.

From the opening numbers ‘Prioritise Pleasure’ and ‘Fucking Wizardry’ it was obvious we were in for something special. Multi-instrumentalist Sophie Galpin and drummer Mike Parks provided Taylor’s soundscape and the audience were uproarious bellowing the former song’s “I’m Free” lyric back to the singer and creating an atmosphere in which Taylor could do no wrong.

There was no evidence of the illness which led to the first two dates of the tour requiring rescheduling, indeed Taylor was absolute dynamite on stage. Her dancers and backing singers – Marged Sion, Seraphina D’Arby and Levi Heaton who are an integral part of the show – delivered intimate choreography alongside Taylor creating a formidable sense of feminine solidarity and strength.

After the funk-pop of ‘Moody’ and ‘Just Kids’ there was a brief interlude with dialogue from Happy Valley which facilitated a costume change before a couple of new songs including the excellent ‘Mother’ and the dramatic ‘Love Second’ which indicated that we may not have to wait long for a new album.

‘How Can I Help You’, ‘The 345’ and the stripped back ‘John Elton’ with just Taylor on guitar were further highlights but the breath-taking delivery of ‘I Do This All The Time’, a catalogue of everyday struggles and self-acceptance was the pinnacle of a sparkling performance.

At one point in ‘I’m Fine’ during the encore the audience began barking in response to Taylor. The song describes the draining effect of toxic masculinity and how a woman had told the singer her and her friends had taken to barking like dogs if they feel threatened by men when out because “nothing terrifies a man more than a woman who appears completely deranged”.

The small number of costume changes during the show – all of them simple yet visually striking – never distracted from the music. The minimalist staging helped highlight the quality of the material being performed. It’s easy to imagine a show like this transferring to bigger arenas and becoming more theatrical so we should appreciate how lucky we are to experience the relative intimacy of these dates.

Finally, it’s worth noting that the ticket price was only £22 and that there were two support artists – Tom Rasmussen and Mega – also on the bill. All concerned should be commended for this. All of us lucky enough to have tickets are unlikely to see better value for money for a long time.

Photos & Review by David Dunn