CMAT at Islington Assembly Hall.
Ciara Mary-Alice Thompson – better known as CMAT – is one of the strongest singer-songwriters of her generation, has one of the best voices I’ve ever heard live, and has carved out a distinctive and unique brand for herself. Even if it wasn’t for all this though, she’d still be deserving of the utmost success on account of being so bloody lovely.
I was lucky enough to interview her for Gigwise earlier this year, and she was a delight, sharing top-tier anecdotes about the title of her debut album If My Wife New I’d Be Dead and her experience roller-skating for the music video of her song ‘Lonely’. Then in June, Gigwise sent me to Leisure Festival in Margate, where CMAT performed an acoustic set. As entertaining as the music was her patter in between songs; this being a festival, many of the audience won’t have known her, but her big personality kept everyone engaged.
This time, for her headline show at the Islington Assembly Hall, things were different. For one, she was now accompanied by a full backing band (a bonus rather than a necessity, such is her strength as a performer) and for another, this crowd was CMAT’s crowd. And it turns out, her fan-base matches her in terms of positivity and enthusiasm. It’s become a tired cliché to use the word “family” in relation to fans, so I won’t, but the crowd of people at this show absolutely felt like they hailed from a single community of bona-fide legends, many of whom had come dressed for the occasion in novelty cowboy hats. It was a community of kooky bisexual women with anaemic, tote-bag carrying heterosexual boyfriends. It felt like home.
When I arrived at the show and gave my name for the guest list, the member of staff at the box office recognised me from my starring role in a piece of fringe theatre some months ago, which gave me a buzz. Then when he couldn’t locate my name on the list, it became clear that Gigwise had provided the venue with my stage name, Molly Martian, and I was forced to gingerly explain myself. It all made me feel like a sexy important celeb. A celeb who was ready to sing along to the songs of her close personal friend CMAT. (You lot enjoying this measured and impartial review?)
Having travelled in straight from my day job, I was grateful for the fact that unlike at O2 venues, I was granted entry with my A3-sized bag. What I was less grateful for was being asked to hand over £7.25 for a pint of Red Stripe. This was officially the most I’ve ever paid for a pint of lager, and a lesson in checking the prices on the board before ordering. I cost-of-living-crisis’d my way into the crowd to enjoy the gig.
I was pleased to learn that CMAT had brought a fellow Irish singer-songwriter, Aislinn Logan, on the road with her. Logan’s charming blend of sad-girl indie and bouncy electro-pop was well received by the crowd. And when the support act pulled the classic move of asking who was excited for the headline performer, everybody went wild.
Just before the main event, I returned to the bar and bought myself another beer, this time opting for a Foster’s at a price-point of £6.15. Once paid for, this somehow actually felt worse than the £7.25 Red Stripe. As I gulped down the first few mouthfuls of bright orange bread-water, in order to be able to carry it through the venue, I thought about how I’d never be able to afford a mortgage despite being university-educated. I thought about the prohibitive cost of having children, and the ethical implications of bringing them into a reality where greed and stupidity seems irrevocably set to decimate the natural world. Thank god for live music.
After playing the entirety of Celine Dion’s ‘It’s All Coming Back to Me Now’ as her intro music, CMAT arrived on the stage, to rapturous applause. She opened with If My Wife New I’d Be Dead’s opener, ‘Nashville’, a bittersweet banger that I’d chosen to include in my personal Spotify playlist of the 20 best songs of 2022 only a few days prior. From that point on, she kept the hits a’coming – sometimes on a debut album tour, setlists can feel predictable, but that wasn’t the case here. Along with almost all the tracks from the debut album, she also played the non-album singles ‘Another Day (KFC)’ and ‘Rodney’ (the latter of which she charmingly introduced as her most underrated song), as well as two brand new tracks, ‘Mayday’ and ‘Rent’. The second of these, which she played solo as part of her encore, was a highlight of the evening, showcasing her untameable vocals and unbridled rock-star energy.
For the single ‘No More Virgos’, she brought Wolverhampton legend Tom Aspaul onto the stage, whose albums Black Country Disco and Life in Plastic have had breakout success on social media and whose songwriting credits include hits for the likes of Kylie Minogue and Becky Hill. If I were to be brutally honest (and I will be – I’m a serious music critic with more integrity than I know what to do with), I’d say that the collaboration with Aspaul seemed under-rehearsed and his vocals resultantly felt shaky and sub-par. But his chemistry with CMAT more than made up for it. And he does look dreadfully good in a crop-top.
In fact, CMAT’s chemistry with all of the other musicians on stage was off the charts. She and her guitarist in particular had a special vibe going on – they were dancing like a pair of newly-weds throughout and at one point he decanted a beer into her mouth. Before she played ‘I’d Want U’, she made a cheeky jab about his reluctance to play the pedal steel. And then he played the pedal steel anyway, to expert effect.
The songstress finished the explosive show with her signature song, ‘I Wanna Be a Cowboy, Baby!’ and the mostly-female audience sang every lyric back at her as if their lives depended on it. I wondered what it meant for these women to so desperately want to be cowboys, and was reminded of something Sylvia Plath once said:
“My consuming desire is to mingle with road crews, sailors and soldiers, barroom regulars—to be a part of a scene, anonymous, listening, recording—all this is spoiled by the fact that I am a girl, a female always supposedly in danger of assault and battery. My consuming interest in men and their lives is often misconstrued as a desire to seduce them, or as an invitation to intimacy. Yes, God, I want to talk to everybody as deeply as I can. I want to be able to sleep in an open field, to travel west, to walk freely at night...”
I think this quote speaks to what is so powerful about the imagery of CMAT-as-cowboy. ‘I Wanna Be a Cowboy, Baby!’’s lyrics talk about wanting to rise up in a world dominated by men; about the travesty of walking home at night with keys between your fingers. It’s a universal feeling that’s nevertheless relevant to CMAT’s role in the male-dominated indie music landscape.
She may be loudly expressing a desire to be a cowboy, but really CMAT is honouring a long tradition of musical cowgirls. Dolly Parton, Loretta Lynn, Lucinda Williams – all of these songwriters have paved the way for Ireland’s Ciara Mary-Alice Thompson. And her show at Islington Assembly Hall was proof as good as any that far from being derivative of these icons, CMAT stands shoulder-to-shoulder with them.
I felt so full of verve and excitement at the end of the night that I even thought about doing something I never do, and buying some merchandise. Then I remembered my £7.25 pint of Red Stripe, and my £6.15 pint of Foster’s, and my £200 tax bill due in January, and the £125 I owe my flatmate for central heating, and thought better of it. One thing I’ll never resent paying for though is a concert from CMAT. Though you’ll have to take my word for this of course because, in my capacity as a Gigwise journalist, I was of course admitted for free.
