Should've gone to rehab...

After several weeks of anticipation, last night Sara and I went to the Hammersmith Apollo to see Amy Winehouse perform. Full to the brim with reports of the lil' laydee's drug and alcohol issues - not to mention her husband's recent failure to be granted parole - I had been preparing myself for a last-minute death or cancellation and was certainly not expecting a polished performance. Which was lucky.

Wise to the fact that she wouldn't be on stage until fairly late, Sara and I had some food first at Riverside Studios and meandered towards the venue at about 9.30. Amy eventually tottered on stage at around 10.15 - over three hours after the doors had opened. The bored crowd were furious that she'd taken so long and greeted her arrival with boos. Sara and I were still feeling pretty fresh and unresentful but within a minute of the opening number beginning, I was almost in tears. The girl was an absolute wreck. Out of her head on who knows what - most likely a bit of everything - she had no control over her eyeballs which regularly rolled to the back of her head; her tiny angular limbs juddered back and forth around the microphone stand like a gangly fawn. Despite their long wait, several audience members left almost immediately. She couldn't enunciate her vocals and on the few tracks where she heaved a gargantuan guitar over her emaciated shoulders, she barely even attempted to play. Two or three times, she strolled offstage mid-song, leaving us uncertain whether she would ever return. Her fantastic band were obviously doing their best to keep the little waif onstage but there's absolutely no doubt that she was hating being up there. It was a lacklustre tragedy and at times I felt embarrassed to be there. It felt like staring at a motorway pile-up.

And yet. Her voice. Despite the appalling lack of confidence, the addiction, the bulimia, the heaving and jerking, the slurred lyrics, the inebriation, the agonising youth and the depression, she didn't miss a single note. It was ultimate proof of absolute talent at its most raw - a vocal display that cannot be learned or trained, as innate as thirst or lust. She had no control over anything last night - but still her voice emerged, effortlessly, soulfully and perfectly. It was both awesome and devastating.

The audience booed throughout, furious that she was clearly incapable of putting on anything approaching a show. Since I'd never predicted anything else, I was upset that the crowd was so loudly unsupportive towards this fragile twentysomething, whose life is in a profound mess. Surely no one could have bought their tickets expecting coherent banter or sober fun? Surely no one could have thought she'd be anything other than absolutely messed up: it was pretty obvious that we were lucky she was even vertical. A few glasses of beer helped me almost enjoy the experience but in retrospect I feel ashamed for doing so: there was a dark part of me that forgave her disappointing performance because I felt privileged to be witnessing such a public disintegration. It wasn't so dissimilar to the freaks discussed in my previous post - a mob paying to see a victim of their own creation. The curse of celebrity claims another victim - and I fear her tiny frame won't survive this circus for much longer.