Paper Aeroplanes at Bodega

Supported by Cousin Jac,  a music project of Cornish singer songwriter Jez Wing, who played his folk melodies to a half empty room. A real shame, since the piano-pop ‘Fire and lightening’ sounded like Ron Pope at his best.

Wing warmed the room as he joked about demanding a glass of milk in his rider. The audience lapped it up. (Oh I went there)

Everyone was lapping up the piano pop

Sarah Howells and guitarist Richard Llewellyn of Paper Aeroplanes took to the stage and immediately opened with a jazzed up version of the gentle ‘Same Mistakes’, moving from singer Howells self-confessed favourite song, the darkly romantic ‘Fable’ to  the achingly sad ‘Winter never comes’.

Howell told the audience it was nice that she didn’t have to tell anyone off for talking through the slow songs. Perhaps the first time anyone has considered Nottingham polite.

Nottingham- a polite audience? Really?

The set list drew mainly off 2013s Little Letters but also played fan favourites from the last two albums, with Howell filling breathers with anecdotes behind the songs, like the unattainable boy she used to fancy who spawned at least five.

The crowd, a mix of older couples and die hard teenage girls, swayed in the dark to tales of bittersweet love; first, unrequited, unwanted-Paper Aeroplanes tugged those heartstrings till they near came off.

Howells performed almost entirely with her eyes closed, which sounds bizarre but lent her soaring vocals a haunting vulnerability. That being said, it wasn’t all doom and gloom.

Howells with her eyes closed

Though the performance was at its best when it was just her voice and his guitar, the addition of Jez Wing on keyboard and an extraordinary double bass player, added a jaunty pop edge to break the melancholy.

The show ended on ‘Multiple love’, pared back and acoustic to suit a beautiful night for an audience full of hearts that were anything but broken.