That is the magic of Davina and The Vagabonds, and she totally owns it. By the time you understand what’s happened, you’re already hooked, already wrapped in that speakeasy, jazz-blues blanket, and honestly? There is nowhere else you’d rather be.

The Cluny 2 was a sell out on Saturday the 23^rd May for the occasion, with the room configured differently to how regulars might know it; more intimate, positioned perfectly to conjure that jazz club feel that the music so richly deserves. And it was perfect. Every detail served the atmosphere, and the atmosphere served the music.

Davina Sowers moved through what appeared to be a fairly loose set list with effortless authority, pulling songs from a well-worn file with the confidence of an artist who knows exactly what each room needs and exactly when it’s needed. But what made the evening so extraordinary was not just the songs themselves, it was the band she has assembled around her. Becca Lozier on trumpet and vocals, Matthew Hanzelka on trombone, Graydon Peterson on bass, and Ben Ehrlich on drums, each one a mind-blowing talent in their own right, each given their moment to shine, and each utterly luminous when they did. Yet together, they became something far greater than the sum of their remarkable parts.

What struck me most was how little direction seemed to be needed. The communication between Davina and her band was almost invisible, a subtle hand movement here, a glance there, and yet every transition, every shift in tone and tempo, landed with pinpoint precision. This was not a spotlessly rehearsed performance so much as an intuitive one, a shared musical conversation between people who listen to each other at a level most bands only dream of. This is how jazz blues should feel. Lived in, breathed, real.

The set drew from a rich pool, with originals including ‘Please Don’t Bury Me’, ‘Bone Collection’, and ‘Red Shoes’ sitting alongside covers of Etta James, Ella Fitzgerald, Aretha Franklin, and, in a moment of delightful mischief, The Kinks. Davina presided over it all with warmth, humour, and an easy rapport with both her band and her audience that made the whole evening feel less like a performance and more like being let into something special.

‘Devil Horns’ was a particular highlight, the dirty double bass doing things to the room that really shouldn’t be legal, the call-and-response between Davina’s vocals and Matthew’s trombone an absolute masterclass in tension and release, in restraint and surrender. I won’t stop talking about that moment for a very long time.

Becca Lozier stepped forward for ‘Exactly Like You’ and ‘Four or Five Times’, taking the vocal floor with total ease and feeling, and even managed to coax the audience into participation, no small feat when everyone in the room was sitting quietly in awe. She was extraordinary, and watching Davina delight in her bandmates’ individual brilliance was one of those quietly beautiful things you don’t forget.

And Davina’s voice… oh my goodness… I said it in our interview ahead of this tour and I’ll say it again here, louder for the people at the back, it is one of those voices that rearranges something inside you. Raw and refined all at once, rooted in the great tradition of blues and soul but entirely, unmistakably her own. It carries weight, wonder and pure delight in equal measure.

Finishing with ‘Sunshine’, the song that apparently hooked Jools Holland into inviting Davina on to his show, was absolute perfection. A delightful earworm, that weeks later will still appear unannounced out of my mouth.

It took Ross at Cluny 2 fourteen years to get Davina and The Vagabonds back to Newcastle. Fourteen years! I can only imagine how many people in that sold-out room had been waiting just as long. For my part, I arrived having recently had the privilege of interviewing Davina ahead of this UK tour, and I thought I knew what to expect. But I didn’t, not really. Because Davina and The Vagabonds are, as she herself has said, a band that has to be seen to be truly understood.

Go and see them. Chase them across the country, even the world, if you have to. And if it’s another fourteen years before they return to Newcastle, I will be first in the queue, although I sincerely hope it isn’t.

Some artists leave a mark, some nights leave a mark. This, for me, was both. And it is most definitely devil red 💋