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Following her triumphant chart topping album and run on the top 5 singles chart within the last month, you could be forgiven for thinking that the Academy is a step down from the size of venues Ellie Goulding could be playing.
But her current tour gives fans an unmissable opportunity to see Ellie up close and personal before her next tour which sees her playing venues almost five times the size of the Academy.
Wearing a black dress and white tights Ellie’s emergence onto the stage is a welcome sight for the crowd after waiting 40 minutes since the support act Primary 1 left the stage.
She opens the set with Lights – the album’s title track – and it becomes clear why she has earned so much acclaim from both the BBC Sound of 2010 poll and the Brit awards even before her album was released.
Her singing is perfect throughout the song and her live performance throughout the night warrants the same accolade.
While aimed at a mainstream audience, if Ellie’s songs had been sung by any artist except herself, the personality and panache would have been entirely lost in the process.
It is this individuality that sees Ellie Goulding hitting the big time and not still as she put it ‘playing to about two people in a pub.’
Highlights of the set include The Writer, a slow ballad that has a chorus that could quite easily of been seen on a Taylor Swift album. Also Guns and Horses, one of her earlier songs showing the folk roots shining through and then sprinkled with her weightless vocals.
Salt Skin sees Ellie shed her guitar and take up drumming duty as well as vocals. A small Drum and cymbal take a good bashing as Ellie drums out an extended breakdown in the track showing her musical ability extends much further past singing and guitar.
A cover of Midlake’s Roscoe sees many of the fans lost for words as she covers a band many of the younger bands will never have even heard of.
The band themselves are undoubtedly an influence on Ellie with their alternative folk rock and the cover shows how Ellie can take a song and sprinkle it with her feathery vocals and acoustic radiance.
Nonetheless it is not so much Ellie Goulding’s songs that steal the show tonight, but the sheer originality and brilliance of her voice. As delicate as a butterfly, but still with astonishing power it is the tool that has seen Ellie Goulding make her rapid ascent to the top.