Review: Shura at Union Stage
Photo courtesy of diymag.com
There was something terrifyingly intimate about Shura’s stage presence during her show at Union Stage last month. As she sang, she oscillated between two extremes: performing with her eyes completely shut, rendering her closed off to the audience, and making direct eye contact with those lucky enough to be near the front of the room. Experiencing that level of contact with an artist is rare, but when it occurs, it opens up yet another channel of vulnerability that connects her with the crowd. For me, this commitment to vulnerability defines who she is as a performer.
Also to note: she is exactly as cool as you’d expect her to be — which is to say, very. Wearing a wide-brimmed white hat and leather jacket, she displayed her talents as a singer and multi-instrumentalist throughout a tight, hour-long set. In addition to being extremely cool, Shura is also extremely English. By this, I mean her onstage banter touched on topics including her cats, Winifred and Flump, mnemonic devices that help her remember the cardinal directions (Never Eat Shredded Wheat, for those wondering), and the disorienting aspects of traveling cross-country in the backseat of a tour van. Getting a more concrete glimpse into her reality helped me further appreciate her music.
Even though her two albums, 2016’s “Nothing’s Real” and her latest effort “forevher,” are different in scope and subject, there is a through-line that connects the two. Take her opening songs, for example: Shura began the night with slow-burining ballad “BKLYNLDN,” careened to the percussive, frenetic energy of “Nothing’s Real,” and evened things out with “religion (u can lay your hands on me).” Even when singing about a relationship that spanned the distance between Brooklyn and London, there is a focus on interiority and the self that runs through all of Shura’s lyrics. As she continued to play tracks primarily from her new album, the audience became enveloped in the blissful, trancelike state that her music inspires.
The best moment of the evening happened near the end of the set, when Shura played “Touch.” Singing the lines, “I wanna touch you but there’s history / I can’t believe that it’s been three years,” she held up five fingers, almost with an expression of disbelief. This is an acknowledgement that most performers don’t make in the moment: though a song can freeze a moment or represent a memory, the passage of time can still transform what is being said in ways that are not always perceptible to the audience.
As the song continued, she walked around the stage, reached out and literally touched the hands of the people in the front row. Was this on the nose? Maybe. But, I can’t deny that this moment — and her music — served as a visceral reminder of how powerful connection can be. I left the performance feeling a sense of closeness that I haven’t felt in quite some time, and that is something to be grateful for.