BY MICHAEL CHOWNE

A really great show put on by two artists at the top of their game, with their bands, as The Half Moon Putney put on a double bill of Jade Helliwell and Jessica Clemmons of Jess And The Bandits on Wednesday 2nd September 2026.

Less than 9 months since giving birth to her first child with husband Luke Thomas, both Jade and Luke were in fine form, in what would normally be the headline slot, with Luke leading her band on electric and acoustic guitar.

Playing 16 songs in a little over an hour Jade gave us a performing masterclass as she played all 7 songs from her 2026 ‘Rebegin’ album produced by Alyssa Bonagura, underlining that motherhood has not dimmed her sparkle. There were old favourites too with 2 songs from her 2024 ‘How Love Goes’ EP, 5 songs from her 2022 ‘Woman I Am’ EP and the 2021 single ‘Smoke’. Of course there had to be a Dolly Parton trubute too and Jess was brought back up to the stage for a sizzling, and joyous, ‘9 to 5’. A really nice touch from both artists to bring on stage a BSL interpreter they’d both worked with before for a couple of songs too.

Jess was playing here with a band but not the usual Bandits I’ve seen before (which have previously included Jade’s husband, Luke Thomas, and are usually UK based). This time Jess brought with her from Texas an electric guitar player, a drummer and a backing singer, supplemented by a Londoner on bass.

In an hour long set that began the night, Jess and her band gave us 14 songs of mostly country rock – the electric guitar player was both superb and loud! 2 unrecorded songs (‘Living in a Country Song’ and ‘You Started It’, I think) sounded great, along with 3 songs from her 2025 album ‘Jessica’. There were also old favourites with 2 from the 2017 ‘Smoke and Mirrors’ album and 5 from the 2015 album ‘Here We Go Again’. Jade sung one of these (‘Nitty Gritty’) with Jess, along with Shania Twain’s ‘Man! I Feel Like A Woman!’. There was also an earlier cover of Jo Dee Messina’s ‘Heads Carolina, Tails California’ that had the audience singing along. The BSL interpreter also added something by making her first appearance of the evening in Jess’s set.

A wonderful evening though I’d have preferred the music in Jess’s set a little quieter and for Jade to have lost the backing track (which a lot of, particularly US artists, seem to be using now, a trend of which I’m not a fan. I prefer my live music live).