A Stellar Show
New Yorker Julian Velard remarks on his website that we, "can't get enough of him" over here as he's scheduled to add a 5th show to a run of London dates. If his Latitude performance is enough to go by, I can understand the attraction, Velard is a bluesy singer and an equally smooth talker whose tunes are as creamy as his small talk. "It's sunny in England, who'd have thunk it?" he quips before launching into the happy pop tune, 'Do It Alone' about his home of Brooklyn, which from the sound of the chirpy, skedaddling vocals must always be sunny! Although Velard does let us in on the fact that his homeland isn't always so good to him, recalling how the last festival he played, Rocklahoma saw him bottled.
His band consist of a bassist, glockenspiel and keyboardist and a drummer, an unusual combination that can still make a pretty big noise as the rhythm section rocks away behind every song.
The bright, bubbly, 'Joni', which to clarify matters Velard explains is about "someone who's not playing at this festival, which is about one person so you should be able to figure it out", is rather like a more eccentric version of the sounds made by last night's Uncut Arena performer Albert Hammond Jr.
There's an effortless piano ballad accompanied by spinning glitterball with the wonderful lyrics, " Last night I had a dream about God, and he played the piano like Elton John", which is the kind of crossover tune that could see Velard break into the mainstream. Julian Velard puts on a charismatic and individual performance that could blow a lot of other artists out of the water.