Laura Marling – The Lowry, Manchester (April 2010)

Review by MR Wallis

“If it’s not teenagers, it’s fucking hipsters,” blurted my friend Grace. We were sitting on the eighth row of The Lowry’s purple Lyric Theatre, surrounded by old men and women, posh people and throngs of twelve-year-olds with large bushes of hair, smelling of bubblegum: “I love music, but I hate people who love music.”

The supporting act, Sydney’s Boy and Bear resembled a sofa.
Their gangly, loose-limbed dancing and guitar-thrusting – seen before in the guitars and voices of Mumford and Sons and Noah and the Whale – coupled with their single Mexican Mavis gave the sofa a nice upholstered cover but nothing more. Unfortunately the venue was less intimate than they’d been used to: “It’s hard to be raucous in a purple theatre.” Hammersmith’s Alessi’s Ark were a post-vocal-nodules Joanna Newsom with a bit of whalesong added. Although poetic and enjoyable, I couldn’t help think that she was missing a spark of confidence.

Marling has been peddling her heartbreak and poeticism through two albums now, her voice spread with folky markings. (But why does someone so gifted have to resort to an Irish twang?) Marling wandered onto the stage, a tiny thing. The uplights cast the band in an ethereal glow, Laura singled by a spotlight – her bones shadowed and goblinlike. Dressed in a black shawl she sang with perfect pitch.

The band left us alone in the theatre, the melancholy and mythical story-telling which we associate with Marling shining through. She performed a new song followed by a cover of The Needle And The Damage Done but messed up laughing. Although abrupt, it was still a heartfelt performance that pleased old fans. She continued with Failure and then Night Terror, where she improvised the fiddle section by whistling through her teeth. She ended her solo with Rest in My Bed and Made by Maid. The band returned to perform Goodbye England (Covered in Snow) and What He Wrote, both hauntingly beautiful and topped by Alpha Shallows and Alas I Cannot Swim, which sparked a singalong.

“We’re chums right?” Marling said, “I go to a lot of gigs, sometimes I pay for them.” Did we want an encore? She didn’t understand why bands would hold back songs when you’ve paid. A man told her to get on with it. Marling sulked, “I’m not doing an encore … but I love you,” finishing on My Manic And I and I Speak Because I Can.

MR Wallis

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