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➤ Rock god Lovatt exits TV talent show with charisma intact

Posted on 10 Mar 2014 | Leave a comment

The performance: Jamie Lovatt gives his all on The Voice, March 8 © BBC

❚ THAT’S THE WAY TALENT CONTESTS CRUMBLE. One minute you’re flavour of the week. The next, you’re out. That’s the way Saturday primetime TV crumbles too. The show is called The Voice. It’s not called The Star. So although glam-rocker Jamie Lovatt radiated tons more charisma than the awkward bloke from the pub, Chris Royal, who was wearing his Auntie Mabel’s pinafore under his jacket, the bloke won this week’s vocalists face-off because apparently, according to coach Ricky Wilson, you “can’t learn the kind of emotion he can portray in a song”. (Even while wearing a pinafore and a twat-Kevin baseball cap back to front. In 2014! Per-lease!)

The pair were billed as Emotion vs Power and powerhouse Jamie was sent packing back to his band Romance, whose bookings have suddenly sky-rocketed thanks to his TV appearances, so that can’t be bad. Pop goddess Kylie did bid him goodbye saying: “Everybody’s going to fall in love with you. You already have it all. Run with it.” Fact is, Jamie has all the attitude to be the next Adam Lambert and a better rock voice than the falsetto bloke from the pub, so long as he chooses better rock songs by real rock writers than the Adele number he nobly had to get his vocal cords round on Saturday night.

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The competition: bloke in Auntie Mabel’s pinny. (The Voice screengrabs © BBC / Talpa / Wall To Wall)

The fan: Kylie the coach who could have recruited Jamie, but didn’t

The coach Ricky Wilson: the man who drowns kittens parts company with Jamie

The exit: Will.i.am, Kylie and Sir Tom Jones are fascinated to the last

After Ricky the coach had passed verdict on which of his two protégés was staying in the contest, he totally bottled out of making eye contact with Jamie in their kissy-huggy moment of parting, and mumbled one of those reality-show platitudes: “Life is made of big decisions. You made a really big decision. I had to make one too.” He did look choked, to be fair for one second, but he did also look like the man who drowns kittens in a sack, and turned away utterly shame-faced. The best bit was Jamie’s flouncy exit during which the other three judges beamed benignly behind him and couldn’t take their eyes off his defiant strut.

Today, Jamie posted this equally defiant new cover of Paul Weller’s Brand New Start, videoed beneath chintz lampshades while perched on a cushion. Two fingers up to suburbia.

➢ Catch up on Saturday’s battle between Chris and Jamie who perform first on The Voice – on BBC iPlayer until April 12

➢ New UK gig dates at the website of Jamie’s band Romance

➢ Previously at Shapersofthe80s: The Voice’s rock god Lovatt surprises Britain and shocks himself

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➤ The Voice’s rock god Lovatt surprises Britain and shocks himself

Posted on 24 Feb 2014 | Leave a comment

Moment of triumph on The Voice Feb 22: Kylie, Will, Ricky and Tom (in there somewhere), all wanting a piece of Jamie Lovatt. Screengrab © BBC

➢ Watch Jamie’s Voice performance in full plus the judges’ verdicts on BBC iPlayer until April 12 (scroll to 58 minutes)

❚ “I DIDN’T KNOW I WAS GOING to turn round and see this rock god dude!” said Kylie Monogue on The Voice UK on Saturday night. The dude in question had delivered his own steady but highly emotional and emphatically rock reinterpretation of Rozalla’s acid house smash Everybody’s Free to his own twangy Rickenbacker guitar. By his hollering climax the studio audience were on their feet and two of The Voice’s four celebrity coaches had spun their chairs in hopes of recruiting him: superstar Kylie Minogue and Ricky Wilson (“the bloke from Kaiser Chiefs”). Within minutes the dude had opted to join Ricky’s team as its final member, before the BBC TV talent contest’s real battles begin next week.

An hour after transmission he posted on Facebook: “Who saw me then eh? SURPRISE.” Jamie Lovatt, cocky 24-year-old face about Shoreditch where he runs a bar, was back. The frontman for the once glam-goth band Romance, since restyled as tribal “cabaret rockers”, had definitely stolen the show, even though the acts auditioning blind on Saturday were a cut above previous weeks, because most proved to be seasoned performers with terrific voices. This dude also looked like nobody else within miles – an eyeful of androgynous 80s glam, Jamie sported long blond hippy hair and eyeliner, a gold crocheted clingy top, snakeskin trousers and cowboy boots. His style is a fusion of Prince, Billy Idol and the 80s postpunk shamanists Death Cult, though the TV audience was spared his usual stage gambit of performing shirtless.

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BBC, TV, isthisRomance, Jamie Lovatt, Kylie Minogue, Ricky Wilson, The Voice, biography, contest, Glam rock,

The Voice screengrabs © BBC / Talpa / Wall To Wall

For those of us who’ve known Jamie since he deejayed in London’s fashionable Neo Romantic clubs, the fierce TV act was a surprise metamorphosis from the once shy teenager (off-stage!), through the frenetic vocalist onstage with Romance, to this assured showcase cover version bursting with intense feeling which Kylie and the other coaches sensed immediately. Almost 90 seconds into the number, Ricky hit the voting button and six seconds later Kylie followed.

She was full of admiration: “I liked the emotion in your voice. I don’t know if you always sing like that but the fact that you have the ability to sing like that is very moving.”

What set Jamie’s interview apart was the sadness that brimmed within him as he told how Romance’s first lineup had been torpedoed by ill health and their four-album record deal was cancelled when the label dropped the band in 2011. “I lost management, I lost everything.” But not his faith to carry on.

The coaches rallied. Will-i-am said: “As far as getting dropped, guess what? They lost.” And the audience cheered. Tom Jones paid a couple of quiet complements that were evidently heartfelt. Ricky had been there himself: “I know what you’ve been through. I’m in a band… and we lost a record deal.” Lucky Jamie was able to pick which team to join and as he stepped from the stage it was noticeable how all four coaches crowded in for a piece of him. He’d been dignified, determined and, incredibly, said “Thank you” more times than you’d expect from a self-declared “lone wolf” rocker.

Some think a shiny-floor TV talent show might undermine a rock singer’s credibility, but Jamie is a 21st-century man and believes it’s the only way to crack the industry these days. He told The Sun: “People don’t think of someone like Jagger or Jim Morrison going on these shows but if you were to take them at the age they were discovered and have them living now, would that happen?”

Today was spent doing the rounds of the media as a hot TV property. What’s the question they were all asking? Answer: “How did it feel?” Jamie told Shapersofthe80s: “All I can say is it was surreal then, and from all the support I have received, it’s even more surreal now! Absolutely overwhelming, humbling and shocking. I can’t thank everyone enough… Didn’t think this would happen at all. I’m really moved!”

➢ Catch Jamie Lovatt and his new “glam-noir” lineup Romance Mk2 playing live in London during March and April