Beth Orton performed almost exclusively material from her two most recent albums at Brighton's Concorde 2, largely bypassing the 1996 debut "Trailer Park" that introduced her music to audiences three decades ago.
The set drew from this year's "The Ground Above" and 2022's "Weather Alive", with only the 1999 Mercury-nominated title track "Central Reservation" representing her earlier work. Orton performed with a band rooted in jazz and experimentation, delivering emotionally fraught songs to what the Guardian describes as a "rapturous crowd".
The choice to sideline her best-known material might seem risky 30 years into a career, but the Guardian review credits her recent albums as the reason. The artist began an "artistic reboot" in the mid-2010s, shifting from increasingly acoustic and traditional arrangements back towards experimental and dancefloor-adjacent sounds.
Many audience members at Concorde 2 appeared old enough to have first encountered Orton's music three decades earlier, when "Trailer Park" circulated through post-club gatherings. That debut paired classic singer-songwriter elements with "misty electronics". The Guardian's reviewer suggests those expecting an evening of nostalgia received something different.