Ed Harcourt

Esplanade Recital Studio/Sunday

Ed Harcourt is the singer- songwriter as Romantic poet.

The Briton wears his heart on his sleeve, writes lush and introspective songs about love, religion and alcohol and sings them in his evocative, husky and swoonsome voice.

While his music can sometimes feel baroque and even florid, his sensibility and use of language are thoroughly modern and equal measures of wit and self-loathing course through his work.

The evening started with him on the piano performing Lustre, the title track from his fifth and latest studio album, and Apple Of My Eye, which was backed by a thunderous beat.

It was a solo show but thanks to his adroit musicianship, the sound never felt scaled-down or puny.

He switched among the piano, acoustic guitar and electric guitar, and on a thrilling rendition of I’ve Become Misguided, taken from his first EP, Maplewood (2000), he looped guitars and programmed drumbeats and howled through the ending of the song.

Instead of sticking slavishly to the recorded versions of his songs, which were performed by a full band, he tweaked them and made them work in a live setting for a solo show.

With his keen ear and exacting standards, one could hardly expect it to be otherwise. So fussy was he about his sound, he took his time to tune his acoustic guitar.

When someone yelled out “Hurry up!”, he responded with a curt: “Don’t tell me to hurry up, f*** you.”

But he was immediately contrite. He apologised and added: “Now you can go home and go ‘God, he’s an a***hole.’”

He certainly had a flair for the dramatic. He was a charismatic showman who could pound the ivories or tickle them, pull off a sped-up version of Black Dress and, when the amplifier failed, walk right up to the audience for an up-close-and- acoustic version of The Last Cigarette.

He was also adept at roping in the fans to participate in the songs: to howl like a wolf for Heart Of A Wolf, clap along on the final number and sing back-up on Born In The 70s with the line, “We don’t really give a f*** about you”.

By his own admission, his performance was an “equal balance of chaos and professionalism”. Whether due to jetlag or the “Singapore brunch, which is apparently beer and champagne”, he stumbled over his lyrics a few times, including on Bittersweetheart and Shanghai.

Before going into Until Tomorrow Then, he said to the packed studio: “Thank you for putting up with me and I’ll see you again in about 10 years.”

Come back sooner and all is forgiven.

(ST)