Katie Spencer – Kitchen Garden Café, Birmingham: Live Review

By Seuras Og on 9th October 2025 • ( Leave a comment )

Katie Spencer hones in on Brum, her deceptive stealth bomb of song a weapon of mass enchantment.

IT’S ALWAYS A PLEASURE…..

………to be back at Brum’s fabled Kitchen Garden Café, that pleasure magnified when the show is by one of ATB’s favourites. Katie Spencer is touring her latest album, What Love Is, which came out last week. My colleague, John Barlass, was impressed, with the rest of the team no less enamoured, and my delight at drawing the long straw, for this gig, made this one excited cub reporter.

The connect between disc and concert can sometimes be fraught. This is especially the case when the record has several coats of studio gloss, and has a performance bolstered by seasoned sessioneers, filling in any cracks that may be present without their new clothes. Well, that production, by Matt Ingram, was indisputably lush, and the backing musicians exemplary, so would this leave Ms. Spencer high and dry? Anyone who has ever seen her play live will already know the answer to that question.

VELVET UPPERCUT

On the dot of 8, on she strode, her lucky white linen suit, as ever, the garb of choice. Her extravagant pedal board, and her rack of two guitars had already caught the eyes and attention of what might be described a s a partisan crowd. If anyone were talking, beforehand, about anything other than the new release or old performances, it was certainly not apparent. It was straight in with the velvet uppercut of the opening and title track of the new album. Her chunky Gibson hollow body nearly as big as her, even allowing for perspective, the combination of her languidly honeyed vocal, with the crystalline picked notes she brought from, it was exquisite from the go.

Dipping straight in to Forget Me Not, it felt apparent we were going to be getting a lot of the new stuff. And, if anyone was missing the presence of the backing musicians from the record, glorious though their parts had been, no-one was saying. Or, like me, they had forgotten all about them.

The advantage of a live show is the opportunity to get some background and backstory to the songs. Home, also on the album, was described around the longing for home that creeps occasionally into the life of a travelling musician, however much otherwise enjoying the journey. This also involved some ruminations on the choice of lodgings and the merits of the various Brum adjacent Travelodges; the one she would booked into was being noisily and messily refurbed. The song is another glowing mix of poetry in motion and skipping fingers. She’s good on the old harmonics, you know!

SUBTLE PROGRESSIONS

An older song, Sweet And Gentle, gave a telling realisation as to the subtle progressions in her style. It is, by contrast, spikier in its construction, with a greater nod to the jazzier elements in her playing, whereas the new songs are decidedly smoother, offering an almost bluesy flavour, if a woozy, hazy variant. Like she woke up this morning and was actually fine and all well with the world. That was exemplified, then, by the new Come Back And Find Me.

At some stage there was an intermission; forgive me if I fail to recall exactly when, such was the feeling of flow, song by song, which even that gap, to meet and greet, couldn’t disperse. She introduced us to her pride and joy, either just before or after, the bespoke guitar built just for her, a sturdy looking specimen in dark wood: “bog oak and ash”. It looked and sounded a treat, as she played the tune she wrote for and because of it, Back To The Brightness Above. Utterly compelling, with not an open eye in the house, herself included, as the reverie engulfed. I think she followed it with Carry It All, a personal favourite from the new one; it came somewhere and is a beaut.

CHAPMAN’S PAL

The second half saw some earlier songs, songs that reference her place of belonging, Yorkshire’s east coast and, more specifically, Hull. She has become an almost unofficial ambassador for the Humberside city; “well, someone has to“, came a voice from the audience! This was Edge Of The Land and she followed this with Hello Sun, back from her 2019 debut. There was also some talk of her relationship with the late Michael Chapman, and how she had got to know him, towards the end of his career and life, becoming a pal. In his dedication she played a delectable version of his Caddo Lake, a tune I swear I remember him playing, as I sat in the very same seat, at one of his own forays to the KGC.

Back to the new album and it was the centrepiece song she next played. It Was Then That I Knew Love relates to her being an adopted child, and the love given her. Clearly, obviously, still a resonant feeling, she had to cut her introduction short, as to avoid the tears beginning to well. It was a stunningly emotive rendition, near impossible to follow. That is unless you are familiar with Cold Stone, where she put all her fancy pedals into use, a sinuous and shimmery masterclass in the control she has of her instrument.

GOODBYE PAST AND HELLO FUTURE

That was nominally it, but we knew it couldn’t be and the room was certainly not going to let her finish there, irrespective the logistical impossibilities of a traditional leave and return encore anyway. This is something I like best about the venue, in that there is absolutely nowhere to hide. Some shy recognition, acknowledgement both of the facade and the genuine love of the audience for her, had her turn around and play a final Goodbye. Goodbye the song, that is, an important song, as it was through the writing of this, to sign off events in her past, that she found truly her way forward. And some more of those gorgeous harmonics.

Spencer really should be huge and playing to packed out town halls, rather than to the snug intimacy of venues like this. This is what her talent deserves, yet, for all that, I am grateful that she remains a secret known only to those that know, an admittedly enlarging coterie of fans. The Kitchen Garden Café is a haven for the array of artists who operate under the radars of blander and more formulaic musical styles. Long may it last and long may the likes of Katie Spencer darken its doors.