BY MICHAEL CHOWNE
On Saturday 19th September 2026 we visited The SX Bar at The Essex Arms in Brentwood for an outsanding performance by Emilia Quinn Music and her band.
My 11th time seeing Emilia live – she is somebody who has put in the hard yards and just gets better with every show. Without a doubt this country/americana artist is now one of the best UK acts in the business – beautifully written songs and an even more beautiful voice.
This was the second of 4 shows on Emilia’s Dented Halos Acoustic Tour, celebrating her 2nd album that came out a year ago. Playing with a slick band of John W Doyle Music, Mike Addy and Eli Ward, Emilia oozed pure class as she delivered 11 songs (6 from that album, 4 new ones and Worse Than Whiskey from her 2021 Medicate EP) along with a Fleetwood Mac mashup. Does She Know and Call Me By Her Name are favourites of mine and sounded just perfect whilst I really loved the new upbeat song The Chase, but all the new ones sounded great.
Opening act FINOLA was new live for me and did a good job supporting her friend – the two have worked together and Finola is now rediscovering her love for music after a 6 year hiatus. Walthamstow born, Yorkshire raised and, I think, Manchester based Finola gave us an 8 song set, longer than originally planned as Sophie Rose was unwell. Finola’s debut EP Waterworks has apparently been taken down by the record company but she has plans to re-record it and also played some interesting new relationship driven material. Finola describes herself as an indie-pop artist but said she writes in a country style, with songs that sound like they belong in an early noughties rom-com. I particularly liked her latest single How It Has To Be and look out too for Goodbye (Oct/Nov release) and Putting Yourself First (planned for January). Her one cover was Drown by Bring Me The Horizon and it was lovely to see her join Emilia later to sing Without You, a song on which she sings backing vocals on the album.
A really fabulous night – thanks to Madeline Christy of Briar Bookings for presenting this leg of the tour.
