Ellie Goulding is back in Brum for the first time in a few years, and waiting for her is a packed, quite warm Institute sold out crowd. She has had an excellent return to form lately with her latest album ‘Higher Than Heaven’. As it’s been six months since its release, of course the crowd are very familiar with any “new” tunes, so there’s no awkward gaps in the set and it flowed easily alongside the accepted standard fan favourites like, ‘Starry Eyed’, ‘Anything Can Happen’, ‘Love Me Like You Do’ and of course ‘Burn’.

Opening with ‘Better Man’ from ‘Higher than Heaven’, and the title track of said album, are sure to make their way into standard Goulding setlist in the future. She seemed to be having a great time here tonight on the Institute stage, I know the crowd were, and she is in fine voice with her fine vibrato, and high range. Only little niggle was that she has such a soft speaking voice, it was difficult to hear any of the between song stories. But she showed that she doesn’t always need all the big sound round her by covering Madonna’s ‘Frozen’ on her own and later Elton John’s ‘Your Song’, which kept the crowd enthralled. Ellie Goulding had the crowd at her whim and had them singing along or even taking the lead. On this showing there is more to come from a very energetic Goulding.

Photos by Geoff Griffe
Review by Jenny Griffe