Twenty-fifteen has been a year to mourn Perth music venues, with The Bakery and Deville's Pad shutting shop. But good times may be back with the opening of the intimate and rather swanky Playroom in the posh end of Mount Lawley, just a few doors down from the Astor. With a cosy capacity of about 100, New York jazz bar-style seating and table service delivering cocktails and surprisingly delectable nibbles, The Playroom should quickly become a prime dating location for prospective suitors who want to make a good impression.
Encased in a crimson mermaid dress, Cathrine Summers just about managed to wiggle through the tightly-packed tables and onto the stage before bursting into The Best Things In Life Are Free. Not just a cracking vocalist, Summers' art and craft as host was equally commendable, with something of an earthy Amy Winehouse kind of personality under all those sequins. Her common-as-muck London accent cut through any pretentious hoity toity-ness and charmed the audience's collective pants off. Demanding that some chatty types at the bar put a lid on it while she was introducing the next number could've backfired horribly, but the majority of the room breaking into a spontaneous "ssshhhh"s was evidence that we were putty in her hands.
Summers had compiled an excellent moderate to high swing band that had the cohesive feel of a group who'd played together for some time, featuring nimble saxophonist and occasional oboe man, Michael Collinson, who seemed to transform into Lester Young at times, particularly in his glorious solo on You Make Me Feel So Young. Summers confidently and convincingly tackled French, Italian and Portuguese numbers, including Quando, Quando, Quando, a lusty tune which, if my command of Italian serves me well, translates into "when, where and who's on top" — not to mention radically re-jigged versions of Beyonce's Crazy In Love and Lana Del Rey's Young And Beautiful. If there was a consistent subtext to Summers' show it was that it doesn't matter which side of the tracks you hail from — with a bit of glamour and a dose of swing, escape into a Gatsby-style fantasy is never that far away.
