Blossoms, Declan McKenna, The Big Moon, Nao, Rae Morris, Yizzy

That evening at the Brixton Academy, the BBC Introducing project was celebrating its 10 years’ anniversary with a live audience. The venue was packed and so was the programme: no less than a selection of ten amazing artists were there to get properly and formerly introduced by the BBC Radio 1 staff of DJ’s!

Here is a quick recap of the artists we’ve seen on stage: Blossoms, Declan McKenna, The Big Moon, Nao, Rae Morris, Yizzy, a very pleasant surprise guest named Jake Bugg, Everything Everything, Slaves and George Ezra to close the show.

Declan McKenna ravished the hearts of a few younger female concert goers with his energetic music and his youthful charisma. He is the one who properly sang Happy Birthday to the BBC Introducing and the whole audience followed.

Nao was a massive musical crush for us: her presence on stage is simply unbelievable! She is engaging and is having fun on stage, dancing and chatting to the public. She is definitely not that much of a newbie as her performance was very professional and her vocals definitely on point. She performed her hits Fool To Love, Girlfriend and Bad Blood.

Rae Morris was also amazing, despite having a totally different style from the previous act. Sparkling and oozing good vibes in her orange and red outfit, she performed Do and Someone Out There. She was accompanying herself on the piano and gave the audience the feeling that we were in a small piano bar.

Jake Bugg made a surprise appearance in the middle of the programme. Dressed all in black and hunched over his guitar, the young artist with an already exemplary career seem very much into his own bubble. He sang one of his new songs called How Soon The Dawn and, a crowd-pleaser and one of his first hits, Lightning Bolt. It was impressive to see Bugg live as he easily makes the audience go crazy without that much interaction. A very nice surprise, indeed!

Next on our highlights is Everything Everything. They instantly struck as fun: it is not every day that you see 6 band members dressed exactly the same, wearing a blue shirt combined with a bright orange t-shirt, a blue jean and pristine white trainers! Can’t Do, Desire, Kemosabe were our favourites. Do check them out if you have a chance as their sound is very interesting, fun and lifting!

Finally, the man who closed the show and was probably the highlight of highlights, George Ezra took the stage. Accompanied by quite a big band, he sang Don’t Matter Now, his brand-new song Hold My Girl and finished in an apotheosis, performing Blame It On Me and Budapest (during which he required an active participation from the public, that happily obliged!).

All in all, this tenth edition of BBC Introducing was a good mix of very varied artists with different energies and styles. A proof that this is needed in the music industry and that young artists can use that extra push to make themselves known to a wider audience. We are looking forward to next year’s selection and wish all the best to this year’s artists!