Blending her powerhouse Blues-Rock vocals with a touch of Nashville soul, Laura Evans completed her seven-date UK headline tour with her full band at London's Omeara last Sunday, including support from Abi Farrell and Danny Starr. An enchanting intimate venue near London Bridge, where shabby chic in style meets old world arched theatre stage, this special gig was a great way to experience these three artists, given its great acoustics.

First up was Soul/Pop artist, vocalist and songwriter Abi Farrell, with her Fender playing male friend. Her short 30 minute set contained a mix of released and unreleased material. From 'Empowered' and 'Nobody Else' to 'Don’t Follow Me', as well as newer unreleased material such as 'Don’t Forget My Love' and '47 Days'. A short sweet set with pure pleasant vocals. Then it was Rock and Pop singer/songwriter Danny Starr, with his too short acoustic offering containing 'Twisted Attraction', 'Ease My Mind', and 'Double Red Line'.

Enchanting headliner Laura Evans was not only visually appealing to the crowd given her blonde, beautiful good looks, but she also wrapped a musical spell around the audience tonight with her wonderful material. Indeed Laura's multi-layered compositions are like positive musical candy, which explained why many present this evening had come back for more. Dealing with a full range of human emotions as well as the autobiographical entwined, difficult life subjects were addressed with a touch of musical deftness and uplifting lyricality.

Evans’ voice is not just tinged with Americana and Country Blues, it's more mainstream, as was this set. Indeed, based on this evening's performance, and given all of the current crop of ladies on the British Blues and Country Blues scene, this hard working musician, born in the valleys of South Wales, deserves not only more major radio playlist airplay and TV coverage, but also to perform at much larger venues!

Really engaging in personality on stage, as well as celebrating the release of her second and latest album, 'Out Of The Dark', tonight we were delightfully drawn into Laura’s world of rich musical content. Indeed, her long set covered relevant themes, from superficiality, materialism, chasing love, heartbreak ... and finding love again. It was all there, but not in a downbeat way, much more a rather upbeat resilient music, showcasing Evans’ so sweet in style, Country tinged at times, vocal inflections.

Consisting of 'So Out of The Dark', 'Running Back to You', 'What I’m Made of', 'Nobody Loves Me Like You', 'Heartbreaker', 'Fire With Fire' and the searing 'Honest', all of them were not only most moving, but each song was truly a set highlight for me.

Laura also scored with her skilled band, such as the smart and talented Daisy Pepper, who delighted with her fluent bass, underplaying her importance in laying down the beat. While Jake Loosemore was also understated on lead guitar, as was AJ Roussell on drums, as together their unshowy playing perfectly paired with Laura's exuberance, as well as capturing her superb compositional skill.

With two 2026 UK tour dates already announced for February, in the meantime please tell all your family and friends to check out 'Out Of The Dark', in order that we can help make Laura‘s music and albums deserved mega mainstream hits!

Lechyd Da!

Review, Video and Photos: Denise Lester