Review - Portsmouth's Chloe Josephine wows Temperance crowds

Now nearly a year since she left Brave Rival, she has been releasing more songs in the soul and blues genres and putting together a set of musicians and singers supporting her.

First up we had Jonny Moody with a solo set accompanying himself with guitar and percussion, who has been friends with Chloe for over 10 years and met him at a Stevie Wonder tribute night in Southampton. He was, as he said, ‘playing raw’ without backing tracks which worked well with the Temperance audience as they enjoy musicians expressing themselves.

He played a mix of songs including ‘Lady Jane’ with its expressive vocals and great guitar picking style, ‘Cloud 9’ with its lovely passionate vocals, strong guitar playing with percussion backing and its great finger picking. ‘Kingfisher Blue’ was about people who don’t have the confidence you should have, with lovely guitar picking with strong vocals.

As Jonny said, the next song ‘Thinking’ was one of the most miserable songs he had ever written as it was about the end of a relationship, and one he hadn’t played for a while. It had echoing guitar and very passionate vocals.

He finished with ‘Doing of it All’ with its fast picking and slow passionate vocals and ‘Change the World’ with strong plaintive vocals and great percussion backing.

After a break Chloe Josephine took to the stage with her band also including Gloria Miller (backing vocals), Jon Parkins (guitar) and Jonny Moody (guitar).

She kicked off with the title track of her last EP ‘Rebloom’ with its lovely harmonies between Chloe and Gloria with a guitar break from Jonny Moody, followed by ‘Recognise’ with its great guitar backing to joint vocals and more great passionate vocals from Chloe.

From the Colours album we had ‘Mind Up’ with its great guitar backing and soulful vocals from Chloe and Gloria.

Next, we had a brand-new song and its first live performance with ‘Beautiful Wreckage’ with great interaction between Chloe & Gloria and great soulful vocals.

Chloe met Gloria over 15 years ago with a band called Contagious Vibes.

This was followed by a contentious song which will be the next Single with ‘Alix Rhymes’ which is about a fake AI singer that music photographer John Bull had put out on social to see who would notice it wasn’t real.

Then we had a bit of beat poetry from Chloe with a poem about vulnerability.

One of Chloe’s Patreons had suggested Thea Gilmour’s ‘Don’t Dim Your Life for Anyone’ with great slow passionate vocals from Chloe with lovely guitar backing.

The next song was ‘Liquid Gold’ which was about enjoying time spent with her daughter, who had been listening to her at a final rehearsal. It had slow harmonies with eerie echoey guitars.

After a short break we had ‘Again’ with just Chloe on vocals and Jon Parkins on acoustic guitar, which was dedicated to Matt Long – with its soft passionate vocals from Chloe.

With the full band we had ‘Neon Lights’ which was about when you meet someone and there are red warning lights. Great resonant guitars and lively backing vocals from Gloria.

Another cover was Southern Avenue’s ‘Don’t Give Up’ with its soulful bluesy vocals with great guitar & percussion backing and crowd involvement, finishing with a bluesy guitar break from Jonny. Great improvisations from audience members David and Jacky who sang with the band too.

With its great soulful vocals, we had ‘Getting Friendly’ with strong guitar backing followed by a blues song written with Thomas Heppell, ‘Too Much of a Good Thing’ with great bluesy harmonies and great twin guitar backing and Gloria starred with her great vocals.

As Chloe said, we needed a bit more sass, so she performed ‘I Wear What I Want To’ with great soulful/bluesy vocals backed by Gloria and twin guitars, with another bluesy guitar break from Jonny.

‘Feels Like Forever’ was a very therapeutic song which Chloe came back to after several months of leaving it alone, with its slow passionate vocals and twin guitars with Chloe giving it all.

For an encore Chloe and the band finished with a newish song ‘One More Day’ with its driving guitar beat and powerful vocals before lots of crowd applause.