Maintaining X Factor success may be notoriously hard, but Rebecca Ferguson continues to excel with her songbird tones, which she brought to Newcastle Tyne Theatre & Opera House last night.
Ferguson's career is incredibly impressive. Having risen to fame after finishing runner-up on 2010's X Factor, the 31-year-old has honed her own style somewhere between pop and jazz as she continues to pack out audiences across the nation.
The venue for her Newcastle stop is the Tyne Theatre & Opera House. For many a hidden gem, the Opera House is a welcoming venue whose rustic lamps and tiers of seats create the perfect ambience for an evening with Rebecca Ferguson.
Genuine, heart-warming music that is ever so refreshing in today's music climate
A bold opening of 'All That I've Got' kicks off the night as the soulstress dazzled in a sparkly get-up. What hits quickly is that this is real music. The X Factor has a reputation of funnelling generic, ready-made popstars into the industry, but that couldn't be further from the case with Ferguson. Her voice is stunningly unique and just as mesmerising as it sounds on her records. There's an almost retro feeling to proceedings with pauses every few songs to chit-chat with the audience and a host of covers including 'Shape of You', 'I Would Rather Go Blind' and even Stormzy's 'Blinded By Your Grace', the chorus of which seems made for the Liverpudllian.
Before 'Bones', one of Ferguson's most emotional tracks to date, she discusses shopping at the Metrocentre and even admits with a smirk that Geordies "just might be" even nicer than her hometown's Scousers. This track, in particular, stuns the audience as the singer slowly, so as not to trip over the hazardous train of her dress, but poignantly moves around the stage.
After this a series of drum-thumping songs kick-in to add a lighter touch to the show as members of the audience dance in the aisle to 'Glitter and Gold'. It is the tracks from 2013's record Freedom, Ferguson's most impressive album to date, that do steal the show and serve as a reminder of how special that album is.
2016's fight-song 'Superwoman' is dedicated to "single mothers who have just dropped their kids off at school, got to work and received a phone call to pick them up", the singer clearly aware of the type of person making up her audience. For an encore Ferguson performs her most famous effort, 'Nothing's Real but Love', before a brave choice to finish on a cover of 'Proud Mary' which gets the audience on their feet once again.
Rebecca Ferguson provided a stellar evening of genuine, heart-warming music that is ever so refreshing in today's music climate.