213. The Anchoress
Union Chapel
6 October 2023
Some nights start strange and only get stranger in the best possible way. I am walking with my daughter down from Highbury & Islington Station when who should glide past but Thom Yorke, looking exactly like Thom Yorke; slightly haunted, mildly distracted, and dressed as though he’d just emerged from a kazoo-based jazz rehearsal. It was the perfect opening omen for an evening with The Anchoress, whose blend of melancholy, intellect and melodic ache could make even Radiohead blush.
After recovering from our celebrity encounter, we wandered down to Smokehouse, a little gastropub around the corner that seemed to exist entirely to feed people who say “pairing” instead of “matching.” The food was excellent, smoky and inventive, but the evening’s true side dish was a miniature wedding reception unfolding beside us. A pair of boho millennials, toasted their eternal union to the sound of pork sizzling on the open flame grill. It was slightly surreal, entirely sincere, and only in Islington.
Then, off to Union Chapel, that glorious, echoing temple of music, where every gig feels a little like a confessional. For the uninitiated, The Anchoress (aka Catherine Anne Davies) isn’t just another singer-songwriter; she’s a sonic architect of heartbreak, a master of artful melancholy who writes songs like academic papers on grief, love, and female rage.
Tonight, she arrived beneath the chapel’s grand arch in trademark leopard print, her small band arranged like apostles around her. The setting couldn’t have been more apt. The stained glass glowed, the candles flickered, and Catherine’s voice filled the vaulted air like some unholy hybrid of Kate Bush and Tori Amos with a PhD.
The set leaned heavily on The Art of Losing, that magnificent, bruised record that turns pain into poetry. Songs like “Show Your Face” and “Let It Hurt” unfurled with emotional precision. Between songs, she was disarmingly funny: dry, self-aware, and wonderfully human. The kind of person who can sing about existential despair and then crack a joke about Spotify royalties in the same breath.
My daughter, beside me, was transfixed. This was her first time seeing The Anchoress live and come to think of it, her first gig in the always odd surroundings of a church. It was gothic, grand, and deeply moving.
When the final notes of “5AM” faded into the rafters, the crowd rose to its feet in a wave of warmth that felt more like gratitude than applause. And then came the cherry on top: at the back of the chapel, amid the merch table bustle, there was Catherine herself, signing CDs and chatting like an old friend.
My daughter clutched her newly purchased copy of The Art of Losing and, for the first time in her life, approached an actual music star. Catherine greeted her with that same warmth she’d carried through the whole performance, smiling, chatting, signing the cover in marker with an easy grace that made the moment feel quietly enormous. My daughter’s grin could’ve lit the nave.
As we stepped back out into the cool October night, past the flickering streetlamps and the faint echo of applause, it struck me what a perfect circle the evening had been, culminating in the pleasure and excitement of watching my daughter meet their first actual artist.