ASBOLIVE: Phoenix Rising: Amity takes sell out Royal Albert Hall arts showcase of hurt and hope to Durham Fringe and beyond

W: Darren Weale I: Andy Paradise

ASBO picked outspoken Amity as ‘One to Watch’ just over a year ago. Last week, London’s edgy songster, Amity, continued his inexorable rise from the ashes of a mental health crisis when he packed out the Elgar Room at the capital's world-famous Royal Albert Hall, ahead of a tour in Durham. The people behind the Durham Fringe Festival, like us, rapidly recognised the burgeoning talent that is Amity, and he returns there for his third year with five dates between 23^rd and 27^th July, when he will take his Royal Albert Hall extravaganza ‘Bite Me!’ to Durham’s music lovers while he plans a wider UK tour of the sell out show.

Amity’s first solo show at the Royal Albert Hall on 15^th July took the already acclaimed artist to a completely new level. The cool room, flanked by corridors studded with photographs of musical greats who played the legendary venue, strained to accommodate the eager crowd for whom the room was hastily rearranged twice as the show oversold and new tickets were issued again and again.

The Elgar Room’s jewel – Elton John’s defiantly red concert piano - where Amity spent much of the show enchanting the slack-jawed crowd with a spellbinding set, was the perfect centre piece for the spectacle. Purple haired, with his trademark white shades atop his untamed curls, and set off by his resplendent performance jacket – crusted with gems, chains and Amity’s own lyrics, as well as a stunning portrait of Amity himself by wearable art designer, Diane Goldie; Amity was not only providing a sonic journey and an emotional and lyrical experience but - sat at that red beast - the visual artistry of it all was inescapable. This all made the room an even more apt setting for such a Future Maker, the title awarded him by The Royal Albert Hall themselves… one whose time is surely coming.

Amity has moved audiences with his original shows in an array of increasingly noteworthy grassroots venues from the O2 Academy, which he played the day after his last GCSE, and Pizza Express Live, to Camden’s renowned listening room, The Green Note, where his first solo show in London also sold out, and Soho’s iconic central London basement music bar under The Spice of Life, where the youngster became a resident artist at the tender age of 16.

Last Tuesday’s show began with drama. In a spine-tingling moment, the audience was plunged into darkness, and Amity’s voice rang out poetically telling the powerfully moving origin story of how his mental health, horribly impacted by pandemic lockdowns, took away the future he thought he had but gave birth to his musical journey. The confessional moment created an intimacy and vulnerability that moved some to tears.

Then suddenly, out of the darkness, now spot-lit and starkly alone on stage, Amity performed arguably one of his most harrowing songs, ‘To Be Known’, with his eviscerating gut-punch vocal as moving as the heartbreakingly brutal lyrics.

That bleak and heartfelt start over, Amity turned to charm the audience with his chaotic and unexpectedly upbeat stage persona, promising a set that would be “…vibrant and fun. Let’s have a good time!”

Amity’s set was indeed diverse and gripping. From Amity’s debut EP: Bite Me, To Be Known, Hurricane Heart, and Ephemeral. Old favourites among fans, such as Plasticine and Inferno, and new songs played for the first time, such as Strawberry Haze, Itch, Drowsy, and Tattoo. Just as memorable and indeed, biting, were the interludes of spoken word and poetry, taking aim at an unjust and hazardous world, one whose toxicity is driven home to often marginalised people such as Amity, who is autistic, queer and trans, and that is hardly hidden from society as a whole.