I will admit I didn’t know what to expect with this show. I guess I was expecting a solo performer on stage singing the songs of Amy Winehouse. I was not only wrong but pleasantly surprised! Frankie was joined on stage by nine other powerhouse artists. The small stage hosted musicians playing trumpet, tenor sax, baritone sax, piano, guitar, bass guitar, drums and two back up singers all adding to the beautiful jazz vibe of the performance.

Hosted at the Ellington, it was an intimate event, actually our chairs were so close that my feet were on the stage and my plus one was rubbing knees with the stranger next to her, but after so many years of everyone being reluctant to go out it was wonderful to have a room full of people enjoying the night and the band certainly enjoyed not ‘playing into the abyss’.

The show was a collection of Amy Winehouse’s music combined with music that inspired her interwoven with anecdotes and random facts about Winehouse. While the focus was definitely the music there were moments of laughter and connection.

The whole band was magnificent, it was a powerful live performance combined with dynamic stage presence. It was wonderful to see the band on stage, chilled out and you could see they were really enjoying themselves, totally at home on the stage doing what they love the most.

While in general it was a great show, hats off for the last number ‘Valerie’. If there had been more room I definitely would have taken Frankie up on the suggestion to the audience to get up and dance but short of getting on the stage or standing on my chair I couldn’t work out how. Like the rest of the people around me, we had to settle for clapping along and tapping our feet.

All in all a great show that really ended on a huge high!