However it's the overtly empowering Sarabeth Tucek that unites religious adherents and atheists alike tonight, her ethereal vocals wafting over the congregation, filling this vast, ornate and exquisite space like oxygenated air flushing into a vacuum. Backed by a single accompanying acoustic and an intermittently inappropriate distortion pedal, the tender tale of domiciliary loss that is The Fireman is laid painstakingly bare, the flammable aural substance that ignites the almost tangible burning adoration of Tucek that patently flickers within many of those that line the pews. True to the initial moments of latest record Get Well Soon, the chilling The Wound and the Bow, at once evocative of Polly Jean as if excavated from the White Chalk era, segues into the somewhat more robust Wooden, an acerbic resonance howling from the heart of a worn and torn, battered and bruised guitar. The glorious Smile for No One reverberates quite resplendently, whispering around and about the wooden beams overhead although bereft of the piano tinkering and xylophonic plinking that announces its interpretation previously incarnated in vinyl, it buds but never quite blossoms. It's quasi-sacred set closer, Get Well Soon however, that proves most rousing as it gushes subtly atop a crest of swelling crescendo. Kids are at this point carted off. Whether it's emotionally too potent or merely several hours past conventional bedtimes remains a mystery, although rather more conclusive is the enlightenment provided by she in the figurative frontroom of He.
