Lail Arad, The Green Note, Camden 16 June 2010

Review by Joy Thomas

‘Go and see Lail Arad!’ honked the folkingcool ed. ‘Lail’s amazing!’ Being called Joy, I obviously can’t help but be naturally cynical, negative and suspicious. When my expectations are raised this multiplies and I end up being all worried that the gig’ll be crap because I know I’m supposed to like it. To calm myself I decide to stalk Ms. Arad on MySpace and watch the video of Who am I? This was a totally rubbish idea – the video paints her as a typically irritating, middle class North London girl and I decide sorrowfully that I’m probably going to hate her.

And so I arrived at the veggie café in Camden Town where Lail was playing. Oh naivety! Oh innocence! It’s a vegetarian music café in north London! Of COURSE it was going to feel creepily wholesome, wanky, and superior. I sat down feeling very out of place amongst the we-buy-all-our-clothes-in-Oxfam-to-look-cool-but-we-live-in-a-massive-house-in-Hampstead crowd.

URGH, then. The Joy-pal and I cowered in a corner with our eye-bleedingly expensive organic lager and cheered ourselves with an excellent chinwag and some frowned upon marlboro light runs (I’m sure rollies would have been fine). The staff with their brown rice halos kept tidying away our unfinished beers which didn’t help matters and we were a bit frowny by the time the lights went low and we realised that Lail was coming on. We folded our arms, raised our eyebrows and prepared to listen to come kooky pampered princess la-la-laing to a smug crowd of the arty rich. URGH.

Accompanied by a chap on guitar, Lail started the set behind a keyboard with songs that rhymed in a really annoying way. You know when you’ve never heard a song before but it’s so predictable you can sing along? That. The Joy-pal scrawled ‘Regina Spektor’ on my notepad and she was right. Fine, Lail, but come on love, have you got owt else? Sigh.

And then… hang on a minute…

Things started to change. Lail surveyed her crowd and sang a song along the lines of ‘If I’d had it harder and had been a bit more fucked up then I’d be able to write nonchalantly about the horrors I’ve seen… but to be honest I went to a nice, arty liberal school and I like my parents so that’s that then.’

She mooched out from behind the keyboard, came to the microphone, blew her nose and took a gulp of water. And before I knew it Lail Arad had blown my bloody socks off. She is just … personable, nice, self aware. And she’s FUNNY. She’s got a sitcom writer’s eye for the nuances in social funnies and has an ability to make these delightful, clever and satisfying songs that have you hooked onto her completely.

She drumsticked (drumstruck?) a chair whilst singing the slightly bonkersville Everyone is moving to Berlin. She held her maraccas the wrong way round to clonk along to another song. She sang about terrorists, carpooling and putting the heating on. Where was the rubbish rhyming from the start? It was like a different person from the Regina-alike behind the keyboard.

Reminds Me Of You is a perfect example of a song which is intimate, tender and almost a bit sad .. but then dead funny at the same time. The same can be said of Someone New and Winter. The humanity of her humour, the knowing acknowledgment of the flaws and bumps of life is so attractive. Kind of opposite to the atmosphere I’d picked up when first entering he vegetarian café-land. And opposite to what I’d assumed she’d be.

A cover of Leon Russell’s If The Shoe Fits finished me off in terms of abhorrent shame at myself. ‘Can you get us in free, my girlfriend and me, we like the songs but we hate to pay…’ Gah. Ok, ok, you’ve got me, Lail. Well done.

She finished her encore with a treat of a new song called Pickled Love which made me beam with absolute wonder. United with the people around me who I was so quick to deride, I clapped and whooped her offstage, looked around and felt dead grateful to be where I was. Is Humble Pie vegetarian?