CityLife

Diana Vickers

Diana Vickers
Deaf Institute
March 25, 2010

"I’ve been terrified all day," Diana Vickers announces in her impenetrable Lancastrian accent. "Are you having a good time?"

For someone used to performing in front of millions, not to mention receiving damnation from the high trousered devil incarnate, 300 people in an intimate venue should hold no fear.

But there was always something different about Vickers. Talented, flighty and divisive, she was one of the most discussed X Factor contestants ever and its no surprise that as JLS and Alexander Burke fill mega-domes, she has chosen a more earthy route.

Fresh from her successful West End debut, her solo career is so desperate for credibility it’s like George Osborne at a banker’s convention. Collaborations with Lightspeed Champion and Bjork associates, NME interviews and an all male backing band hint at some unrecognisable reinvention. Not so, but as she smiles and dances through a 45-minute set, it’s not the ballad-after-ballad X-Factor car crash it could have been.

Though the powers-that-be are probably desperate to knock it out of her, Vickers’ unpolished and impossibly endearing charm is part of her appeal: she uses colloquialisms (‘I’m sweating bobbins!’) and generally speaks without realising what she’s saying (‘bear with me, my valve is sticky’).  

But what of the songs? The Cathy Dennis penned single Once, part Cheryl Cole, part Kelly Clarkson, is a Radio One wet dream, the sort of song Mark Thompson pictures when he talks of ‘demographics’.

The rest are a mixed bag, though there is enough to maintain interest. Opener The Boy Who Murdered Love has ‘hit’ written through it like a stick of Morecambe rock, the summery pop of Jumping Into Rivers is the best thing co-writer Ellie Goulding has put her name to, while its easy to imagine Numb’s omnipresence this Christmas.

Whether she matches the success of her X Factor contemporaries remains to be seen, but it’s safe to assume Vickers won’t be back at the Deaf Institute anytime soon.

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