Camden was always the natural geography for Amy Winehouse, which made the Roundhouse on Wednesday night the only sensible place to mark two decades of Back To Black. Instead of relying on archival recordings, her longtime musical director Dale Davis gathered the original Amy Winehouse Band to play the record straight through from start to finish. Alongside them were the people who helped construct the sound in the studio, including producers Mark Ronson and Salaam Remi. To fill the vacancy at the front of the stage, an assembled group of contemporary vocalists took turns stepping up to the microphone.
The venue carries a very specific weight in Winehouse lore. It was inside this exact room, on July 20, 2011, that she made what turned out to be her final appearance in public. She had walked out unannounced during an iTunes Festival set by her goddaughter, Dionne Bromfield, dancing along and urging the crowd to pick up Bromfield's album, Good For The Soul. Three days after that appearance, Winehouse died at her home in Camden at the age of 27. Staging this retrospective in the very same hall twenty years after her second album arrived gave the evening a distinct sense of local memory.
Rather than treating the source material like an untouchable museum piece, the rhythm section and touring players re-created the exact instrumental framework of the 2006 studio sessions. Ronson and Remi were joined in the building by fellow producers Paul O'Duffy and p*nut, while former Island Records president Darcus Beese watched from the crowd. The playing stayed faithful to the original recordings, leaving each invited guest singer space to navigate arrangements that have helped shape modern British soul.
The set was organized around eleven solo performances before bringing the cast together. Jessie Reyez took on the opening challenge of Rehab, the track that broke Winehouse to an international audience. Lianne La Havas took over for You Know I'm No Good, followed by Terri Walker singing Me and Mr Jones. Sasha Keable stepped forward to deliver Just Friends, and Nia Smith took the microphone for Tears Dry On Their Own. As the tracklist turned toward its moodier, downtempo moments, Baby Rose performed Wake Up Alone, Skye Newman sang Addicted, and Jorja Smith interpreted Some Unholy War.
Some of the clearest moments came when the volume dropped. Corinne Bailey Rae sang the title track, Back To Black, paired simply with Ronson on piano, paring the composition down to its basic chord progression and vocal melody. Yebba took on the quiet ballad Love Is A Losing Game, while the trio FLO performed He Can Only Hold Her. Before singing, the three members took time at the microphone to address the room directly about their personal admiration for Winehouse.
Talking before the concert got underway, Ronson spoke about the seriousness of taking on these songs again. He remarked that doing proper justice to the album alongside Remi and a group of vocalists capable of handling the material was the entire order of the night. Remi reflected on how quickly the twenty years had gone, noting that he was eager to hear how fresh voices would interpret songs that have remained so fixed in the public imagination for two decades.
After the complete studio sequence concluded, the full cast returned to the stage together. Trading lines across Valerie, they turned the upbeat favorite into an ensemble finale. Since its arrival on October 27, 2006, Back To Black has sold more than 25 million copies worldwide. In 2008, it collected five Grammy Awards, winning Best Pop Vocal Album while Rehab took home both Record of the Year and Song of the Year.
The performance will not remain confined to those who stood inside the Roundhouse. The BBC is scheduled to televise the complete concert later this month as part of an evening of programming dedicated to Winehouse. Before that television broadcast, the audio will reach listeners on October 26, when BBC Radio 2 transmits the performance between 7pm and 9pm during Jo Whiley's regular show.
