Music / Reviews
Review: Prima Queen, Strange Brew – ‘Heartfelt indie-folk’
“Do you want to come a bit closer?” asked Louise Macphail to the crowd at Strange Brew after their second song on Sunday evening. “There’s an awkward gap!”
The audience duly obliged and shuffled forward. The awkwardness was swiftly over at what was a hometown show for Bristolian Louise, one-half of Prima Queen alongside Chicago-born Kristin McFadden.
The pair met while studying music together in London and now create a shared togetherness via their blend of indie-folk, Kristin occasionally swapping her guitar for a violin.
Being a hometown show, Louise had plenty of friends and family in the crowd, including her grandmother who was sat on a stool at the bar.
“She is 95,” said Louise. “But you won’t be able to tell because she doesn’t look a day over 50.”
Butter Knife was dedicated to Louise’s aunt and was one of the songs that Kristin was on violin for as Louise spoke rather than sung many of the emotionally-tinged lyrics.
Those lyrics took us right back to pandemic time when we were not even able to attend family members’ funerals: “It was your funeral today and no-one could go because of coronavirus. It’s hard to get round the idea that you’re gone, we’ve been watching you fade so softly, so slowly.”
There was at least one tear running down the cheek of those in the crowd.
This show, the last in Prima Queen’s UK tour, began with Chew My Cheeks and finished a dozen songs later with Eclipse, with support act Oscar Browne joining in with a shaker.
New song Ugly was about a controlling ex (“You know I would have left you if you had let me”) with another spoken word segment from Louise about how they never showed up to any of her gigs.
Prima Queen’s heartfelt indie-folk can be as poignant as it is uplifting, with Louise and Kristin’s clashing guitars building the angst on 2019 debut single Milk Teeth but the pair also full of beaming smiles, and almost no awkwardness.
Main photo: Martin Booth
Read next:
- My Bristol Favourites: Louise Macphail
- Venue of the Month: Strange Brew
- 25 things to do in Bristol this week, May 29-June 4 2023
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