Alison Moyet – Keswick Theatre – Glenside (A PopEntertainment.com Concert Review)
- PopEntertainment
- May 3
- 4 min read
Updated: May 9
Alison Moyet – Keswick Theatre – Glenside, PA – April 30, 2025
In introducing one of the two new songs she performed in her recent concert, Alison Moyet acknowledged that as she has gotten older, she has worked hard on becoming impervious. With the years, she explained, you no longer tend to be as insecure and concerned about the faux pas in life.
This is a pretty fascinating observation considering that Moyet was a mere 20 years old when she became something of a new wave star as the lead vocalist of the synth pop duo Yaz (they were called Yazoo in her native England) with keyboardist Vince Clarke, who went on to form Erasure when Moyet decided to go solo. Yaz had two albums and four classic hits, including “Situation,” “Only You,” “Don’t Go” and “Nobody’s Diary.”
She was considered one of the best pure singers in the new wave scene, and later she was sold as jazzy pop (it’s hard to believe that when her 1984 solo debut was released, music mags lumped her in with another new British femme singer -- Sade) and later she has experimented in styles from alt-rock to classic jazz. She became a superstar in her native England and even had a few hits in the US.
You’d think she was on top of the world. What would seem more impervious than that?
Now, almost 45 years into her music career, just over 40 years since her solo debut album Alf, Moyet’s performance does tend to highlight the maturity of her artistry that has come with her life experience. This tour promotes her latest album Key, in which she reinvents a bunch of songs from throughout her career.
The tour (and the album) was not a traditional hit showcase. In fact, her biggest US hit “Invisible” was skipped over, as was arguably her biggest international hit, a traditional-sounding cover of Billie Holiday’s “That Ole Devil Called Love.” The other song which could arguably be called her biggest international hit, “Is This Love,” was performed here, although it was completely and beautifully renovated, taken from a mid-tempo pop-soul love song to a devastated torchy ballad.
She also skipped over one of my favorites of her singles, a cover of Floy Joy’s “Weak in the Presence of Beauty,” but I have to admit I’m not surprised that relatively obscure song didn’t make the cut.
However, the songs that Moyet did perform – with her limited band of guitarist-synth player John Garden (who formerly played with Scissor Sisters) and her bassist and long-time music director Sean McGhee – were pretty damned prime.
Moyet did also perform all four of the above-listed Yaz songs – including “Situation” and “Don’t Go” as part of the three-song encore, and they all still had their fun and frisky dance vibes.
However, of course the majority of the setlist took an eclectic stroll through album tracks and fan favorites from her solo career – which makes sense, she was in Yaz for about two years and has been a solo artist for about 40.
The first half of the set in particular mined for some diamonds in the rough from throughout Moyet’s career. From the acoustic atmospherics of the vulnerable ballad “Fire,” to the gorgeous adult pop of “Such Small Ale,” to the rock-vibed balladry of “So Am I,” to the bossa-nova beat of “Beautiful Gun,” lots of forgotten corners of Moyet’s playbook were returned to the forefront.
She went really obscure when she hit the “busking” section of the show, where they diverged from the normal set list and just picked two random songs from her playbook. Since the concert was at the Keswick, which had once been a movie theater, she pulled out the gorgeous “Filigree,” a song specifically about the experience of going to the movies. The second tune was a stripped-down version of the joyous dance pop of “It Won’t Be Long.”
The show closed out with a run of fan favorites. Beyond the two encore Yaz songs mentioned before, she also sang the hell out of an endlessly soulful version of her early single “All Cried Out,” a declaration of freedom from a bad romance. She also shared her wonderful version of Jules Shear’s romantic love triangle “Whispering Your Name.” Finally, she slipped another early solo single, the powerful and hopeful “Love Resurrection,” between the two Yaz classics in the encore.
It seems that Alison Moyet really has finally reached imperviousness.
Jay S. Jacobs
Copyright ©2025 PopEntertainment.com. All rights reserved. Posted: May 3, 2025.
Photos by Jay S. Jacobs © 2025. All rights reserved.
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