Image Credit: Summer Clayton

When I first arrived at the Brudenell Social Club, I noticed a black stool in the middle of the pit. It had a silver microphone and a note that read ‘please don’t touch’. It was from that stool that Celeste would stand and sing for the next hour, balancing delicately despite the gathered crowd and unstable foundation. Towards the end of the show, once the crowd was fully under her spell, she explained, “I just really like being as close to everyone as possible, and sometimes being on the stage you feel a bit far away”. Closeness, both physical and emotional, was central to this experience.

The first of a series of Album release shows, An Intimate Evening with Celeste felt more akin to a church service than a gig. Coming off the back of Covid-19 and a forced tour cancellation from her first chart-topping album Not Your Muse, the evening acted as a taster before the Woman of Faces tour beginning mid-2026. It was with this in mind, and the almost operatic energy of the album itself, that I found myself moderately confused arriving outside the Brudenell Social Club. A Leeds institution known for hosting live music legends such as Franz Fernidad, the Brudenell oozes hard rock energy. Arriving early, I made my way to the bar, and then the adjoining games room. In a sea of pool tables and a young-of-heart but not age customer base, I started to get antsy. I was soon comforted by the line beginning to form at the door,this was, in fact, where Celeste would be playing. It wouldn’t be her first time playing at the Brudenell either, having launched her first album in a similarly intimate show in 2022. After getting myself a nicely priced beer, I braved the line which wrapped around the car park. Several vehicles beeped at us, and the line would be forced to occasionally part to allow some unhappy boozer their entry into the pub. One car hit a table reverse parking…

Once inside, the room began to quickly fill up. Weaving my way through the crowd, I found my spot near the far left of the stage, stuck in between the emergency exit door and the stage itself. I was pretty happy, however the crowd shared a mild unease. On the ticket page, it had stressed the need to arrive early and on time, as Celeste would start very shortly after doors. One hour after doors with no Celeste seemed to have a slight negative effect on the older concert goers around me, but when the band began to filter onto stage, a simple quartet of piano, two violins and a cello, the tension disappeared. It was shortly after that, from the very door I had been leaning against just minutes ago, Celeste emerged. Dressed in a dramatic, curtain-esque green and black shawl and red gloves, she laughed and said hello. Then, as if she was being an imposition on us, she asked very politely if she could get through the crowd. Parting the sea of people packed shoulder to shoulder, she assumed her spot upon the aforementioned stool. 

It was on that stool that she began, and would eventually finish, her set. While billed as an album show, An Evening With Celeste kept the same unconfined ethos of the singer herself, beginning with the unreleased ‘When Dreams are Made’. The slow, epic, ballad seemed to set the tone for the night – emotional, theatrical and raw. Transitioning next to ‘This is Who I Am’, a song fit for a James Bond theme, and then returning to her first album for ‘Lately’, Celeste ambushed the crowd with powerhouse vocals over and over again. Relying on only  the piano for basic chords and accompanied by the ever-building intensity from the strings, Celeste allowed her vocals to shine. It was her next song, ‘Everyday’, in which she gathered the crowd to act as percussion, clicking in time with a staccato plucked string line, that was a personal stand out. Over and over, she rejected the line between crowd and performer, constantly encouraging us to get closer, reminding us that she “doesn’t bite”. Here, she stopped to ask for requests. Acappella, she launched into ‘Hear My Voice’, ‘Tonight Tonight’, and ‘Father’s Son’, but forgot the lyrics to the final song halfway, ending in laughter. 

Then, switching tone abruptly, tracks solely from Woman of Faces began to appear. Stating that the album “Took a long time to make, because of the trials and tribulations of life”,  Celeste manoeuvred into ‘Happening Again’, a song she described as about “entering into a repeat cycle… that’s no longer good for you or good to you”. It remains one of the strongest songs not only in her set but on the album itself, a complete explosion of unfiltered dread, soaring over strings and piano to emerge in soft defeat. Moving into ‘Time Will Tell’, another standout track, she introduced it with ruminations on the nature of time itself. Embedding the audience with existential calm, Celeste urged that “I really believe in feeling what it is, rather than knowing too much what it is, and trusting in time to give you and place you where you hope to be”. Then, she went into ‘Both Sides of the Moon’, a crowd favourite, before returning to the album with ‘Keep Smiling’ and the titular ‘Woman of Faces’. 

The crowd, now bonded in that mid-concert haze of connection, could sense the end of the show was near. Celeste had captured the audience, standing amongst them in a religious fashion. Throughout the show she had conducted us in the audience, waving gloved hands around in mesmeric fashion. Her hands, most likely the only form of movement she could safely engage in while propped on the stool, were extensions of the music itself. Her final song, ‘Strange’, seemed to reflect how the crowd felt in its lyrics:

‘How people can change, 

From strangers to friends, 

Friends into lovers, 

and strangers again?’

Celeste finished her set to rapturous applause, simply stepping down from the stool, and returning back through the emergency exit door she had entered through. And, once again, the spell on the crowd was broken. An Evening with Celeste had been a transformative experience, and truly a masterclass in performance. The album, Woman of Faces, is fully out, and Celeste will be returning with a further tour mid-2026. If you get the chance, definitely catch it.