Set List:
1. Look Of Love
2. Dangerous
3. Am I Forgiven
4. Balance Of Nature
5. Pizza and Pinball
6. (They Long To Be) Close To You
7. Blackbird
8. One Less Bell To Answer
9. Play Your Guitar
10. P. F. Sloan
11. Aretha
12. A House Is Not A Home
13. Take Me As I Am
14. Sara Smile
15. Reach Out
16. Slow
17. I Am Blessed
18. Walk On By
Encore:
19. What The World Needs Now Is Love
From an interview in late September with Rob Copsey:
You’re playing your first live show in a couple of years in October; are there plans to ramp up the touring schedule again or are you keeping it more manageable?
"I’m always nervous! I’m always nervous. I don’t think we’re going to tour this record though - I don’t know, we’re not sure. I’m feeling very creative at the moment with my writing. I think this one might be the only show I do for this album, then I’ll go into my creative place and write. When you’re feeling creative you have to go into that space. I’ve got to get back into it as soon as possible, really."
ReviewFIRST NIGHT REVIEW
Pop: Rumer at Cadogan Hall, SW1
When the British vocalist went through the easy-listening songbook she was untouchable, but it didn’t work so well with her own material
Will Hodgkinson
October 19 2016, 12:01am,
The Times
★★★☆☆
It takes a high tolerance of schmaltz to include a slide show of wedding photographs at your concert, but that’s Rumer. Since the release of her 2010 debut album, Seasons of My Soul, this British singer has become a modern Karen Carpenter, heading fearlessly towards the middle of the road and making the kind of mid-1970s-style easy listening that goes well with a cocktail, an evening dress and a prescription of tranquillisers. Now living in Arkansas and married to Rob Shirakbari, who is also her pianist, Rumer returned to the UK to present a show that was the musical equivalent of a relaxing back massage.
“This is one from the new CD,” said Rumer, managing to make a CD sound like something that had just been invented, before singing Bacharach and David’s Balance of Nature. When Rumer went through the easy listening songbook she was untouchable; there’s something about not just her voice but her very being that makes her the perfect vehicle for smooth standards such as Walk On By and Jimmy Webb’s PF Sloan.
It didn’t work so well with her own material. Pizzas and Pinball was a portrait of an American childhood that listed such pursuits as eating candyfloss and slurping on a Slurpee; not quite up there with Hal David’s way of evoking deep emotional truth through everyday language.
Nevertheless, Rumer is a likeable performer and, in her long black gown, a convincing chanteuse. “Look at him. He’s so small,” she said of her husband, pointing to a photograph of Shirakbari with Dionne Warwick. Backed by an orchestra as well as a band, she brought soporific charm to the best of her own material, such as the peerlessly sad Aretha, and to an encore of What the World Needs Now Is Love. It was anything but challenging, and therein lay the appeal.