CHRISTINA PERRI LIVE AT HMV RITZ

After the massive success of Jar Of Hearts, the young singer - songwriter from Philadelphia landed in Manchester for her first headlining tour.

The story of Christina Perri has the flavour of a fairytale; young singer - songwriter moving to Los Angeles in the hope to land a record deal and have a breakthrough in the music industry.

After years of waitressing during the day and recording at night her song “Jar Of Hearts” was featured in a routine of the popular dance program So You Think You Can Dance. After its exposure on the show, the digital single sold more than 100.000 copies in a month, Christina signed a record deal with Atlantic Records and now she’s en route for her first UK headlining tour.

At 8.30pm sharp Christina and her band walked on a stage decorated with flowers and special lights that created the perfect atmosphere for her tales of love lost and heartbreak, and this is truly her blessing and curse.

As showed by the reaction of the large audience her music and her unpretentious lyrics really resonate across male and female of different generations, but it would be a lie to say that she offers anything different or better from what other thousands of singers out there already did in the past.

Nevertheless Christina has proved to be an incredibly professional singer. Those who only listened to her record might have been deceived by her honeyed vocals and her knack for melodies, but live is where she shines.

Her voice was pitch perfect all the way through and, thanks to the more rockier arrangements of the songs, she had the chance to show that she could definitely soar and not only gently whisper.

Mostly importantly though she proved to have an undeniable charisma and likability. The massive singalong that “Jar Of Hearts” ignited resembled very much what happened to Adele and her “Someone Like You” and it was easily the highlight of the night.

Christina has massive room for improvement and hopefully the audience will stick around to see what she has to offer next.

3.5 out of 5