The ambulance creeps to a halt outside the Brixton Academy at 9.15 on the evening of Amy Winehouse’s second London gig on Friday and is greeted with a ripple of excitement by the crowd. ‘She’s arrived’ is the whisper through the queue. And whether by this means or another, Amy does indeed arrive, beetling on to the stage in drainpipe jeans and a T-shirt, her embonpoint fabulous, her hair leaning crazily like an exotic fruit somewhat behind the rest of her. She pats her chest, perhaps for comfort or to see if it is still there, takes a swig of a big drink, and her smoky sexy treacle-dark voice vaults into ‘Addicted’.
As easy as that, and the audience is hooked. Yes, she was late, but so what? Since when has it been cool for rock stars to turn up on time and drink sparkling water? Maybe I’m twisted, but to me the raw glimpse into the tortured heart of an artist, even revealed through a warped mirror of drink and drugs, is a lot more interesting and real than a pension plan and a yoga habit.
Amy Winehouse, like Janis Joplin or Ella Fitzgerald, is compelling and unforgettable. Forget The X Factor and all the plastic princesses we are offered; this dangerously laced vulnerability is rare and precious.
I first saw Amy Winehouse at the Isle of Wight festival in June; watching her arrive on stage in front of 60,000 people was like seeing Bambi bounce into a clearing to find himself faced with a firing squad. Terrified, she fidgeted and scampered on the spot, calming down only when she sang, and it looked as if it took every ounce of muscle and morphine she could muster not to run for the hills.
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