Today I feel like the movie “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.” Certain memories are rapidly disappearing, losing their vibrancy. In desperation, I try to recollect certain moments but they pass like liquid through my fingers and away down some allegorical drain. I know I experienced something quite unique one night last week; I’m just having trouble recalling the ins and outs of the night. So in an effort to abate the decaying process, I have to write this now…

Shepherd’s Bush has never been a part of London with which I would claim familiarity, let alone affection. I only ever venture that far west for gigs under the cover of darkness with at least one person for company and protection. So it was with some trepidation that I found myself alone travelling on the Central Line. Having bought two tickets and used only one, the evening’s prospects were looking somewhat bleak. Surely as a bonafide grown-up I should be mature enough to attend something as person-heavy as a gig and not feel like a leprous outcast. Right?

Despite my completely irrational dislike of Shepherds Bush, one of its saving graces for me is Bush Hall; a little slice of Edwardian heaven incongruously situated on Uxbridge Road. The hall’s opulent ornamental friezes and chandeliers place it firmly above the archetypal toilet-sized music venues I seem to be frequenting lately. There is so much to admire about it. Regard the smoke-free auditorium, and rejoice non-smokers! See the potpourri-scented restrooms with toilets in full working order. Speak to the friendly staff manning the non-corporate-sponsored bar. It’s a far cry from its popular big sister over by the green but then I am a sucker for the underdog.

Having been waylaid by a certain delicious meal at a favourite sushi haunt, I happened to miss the opening band and saw a mere ten minutes of the second. Those ten minutes however, were sufficient enough time to come to the conclusion that they were not my metaphorical cup of tea.

As the soothing sounds of Sonic Youth played over the newly installed sound system, a crowd crept silently towards the stage, like a fog descending over the city post-Christmas, albeit leaving a respectful breathing space for the headline act.

Shara Worden, in three dimensions, is as diminutive as the main protagonist she sings about in “Robin’s Jar “. Dressed in vivid emerald green, hair intricately twisted and pinned in haphazardness, she resembles Titania from a latter-day Midsummer Night’s Dream. Like Titania, she casts a spell and puts us in a hypnotic state, inviting the audience to enter a very different realm to the one outside of these four well-decorated walls.

Beneath that serene face and slight frame lies a voice that makes grown men weep tears of joy, hearts sigh in adoration, and silences the incessant chatterboxes in the back. I am in awe of anyone in possession of a mere modicum of musical prowess and Shara is blessed many times over. Hers is a voice that effortlessly traverses time and form. I can’t help but be completely overawed as she thrashes her body across the stage, narrowly missing her fellow performers. Yet for all her classical training and experience, you never feel that she is flaunting her talent for show. In fact, I felt she kept that side of her under wraps, only revealing tantalizing insights of what she is capable; a vocal operatic flourish here; an ad-libbed piano moment there.

So many thoughts spring to mind; such as how I never noticed that she sounds like a female Jeff Buckley during “White Rabbit;” the usually impossible feat of an entire audience rendered silent save the whirrs and shutters from numerous electronic devices eager to capture a piece of what we were all experiencing; how I long to possess such a voice for long enough to charm an audience in a small west London hall; my incredulous wonder that there isn’t a queue of fanatical admirers stretching the length of Uxbridge Road to see what I’m seeing.

Alongside renditions from Bring Me The Workhorse, such venerable stalwarts as Prince, Led Zeppelin, Nina Simone and Roy Orbison were given a My Brightest Diamond treatment. Like a magnifying lens to her mind, these songs reveal something of the vast spectrum of music that inspired her to create something monumental, music that elicited the same joy in her as her music brings to us.

All too soon, the band takes their leave. I feel like a child deprived of its favourite toy and banished to a slumbering prison. Appropriately, as I leave, the heavens open and I feel the weight of a steady downpour of precipitation. The spell is broken and I’m alone again, back on the streets of Shepherd’s Bush.

My Brightest Diamond’s Daytrotter Session
My Brightest Diamond Official Site
Asthmatic Kitty Records