Nina Nesbitt, Lauren Aquilina: Manchester Academy

Nina Nesbitt

Nina Nesbitt’s star is in the ascendancy and she played a sold out show in Manchester’s Academy, Getintothis’ Courtney Hughes got her feet moving for this one.

For those who don’t already know (where have you been?) Nina Nesbitt is a 24 year old up and coming pop singer/song writer from Scotland.

Nina started her early music career supporting Ed Sheeran and there was a brief romantic dalliance between the two. Indeed, Ed has a song called Nina for which Nina Nesbitt is the inspiration.

Nina has also recently supported up and coming artist Lewis Capaldi on his tour around the UK and invited him to her Glasgow tour date in the recent weeks.

So, come this Saturday in April we were standing in front of Nina Nesbitt as she performed a sold out show at Manchester Academy 2. Demonstrating how far she has come since we last got to see her perform about a year ago in Manchester at what certainly seemed to be a smaller venue and, even then, not a sell out.

Support for Nina on this particular show is the talented Lauren Aquilina. She seemed like a down to earth, fun loving person with a high range in her voice. However, she could give Taylor Swift a run for her money, as she introduced almost all of her songs as being about her ex.

Despite this, the songs Lauren performed had resonant lyrics and apart from one or two slow acoustic songs, got our feet moving as support acts are supposed to. So it wasn’t all tears and violins.

After Lauren left with our feet moving, but our mood was in need of uplifting. Nina Nesbitt took the stage and the atmosphere instantly improved.

Introducing: Squid, Melts, Just Mustard

Opening with her chart hits from the album The Sun Will Come Up, The Seasons Will Change Nina had the crowd singing along from the very start.

Nina performed songs from her latest album and previous singles such as Chewing Gum and Apple Tree.
During Nina’s set she welcomed back Lauren Aquilina and also brought out, not Lewis Capaldi (and, we confess to being rather disappointed by this, because it has happened before) but another young singer known as Iiola. Explaining that Spotify got them to write the song ‘Psychopath’ together (it’s more relatable than it sounds).

last night was insane oh my god💓 @ninanesbitt you’re incredible, thank you💓 pic.twitter.com/Y75rFyova7

— becca (@rxb3cca) April 14, 2019

The encore of the show included Nina’s song from which the album is entitled and her recent hit ‘Loyal to Me’.

As well as this she also performed a cover of Britney Spears’ Toxic. Nina did not sound as good as Britney herself but near enough did the song justice showing off her vocal range and adding a few of her own notes in, probably to avoid breaking copyright laws.

Nina Nesbitt is definitely an artist we would like to see again in the future. Her shows have a theme of being colourful (mainly pink) and an all-round enjoyable experience.

Images by Getintothis’ Courtney Hughes