I Just Read About That…

[ATTENDED: May 19, 2017] Laura Marling

I first heard about Laura Marling from All Songs Considered—they raved about her album Once I Was an Eagle.  Sarah bought it for me for Christmas, and I couldn’t get enough of it.   Since then, Laura has released two more albums, the awesome Short Movie and the newer, more introspective but equally gorgeous Semper Femina.

Normally I like to see bands that have a great stage show, but for Laura, I just wanted to hear her voice live.  I didn’t think she’d do much in terms of stage work, and she didn’t, but her voice (and her guitar) sounded fantastic.

I had checked her setlists ahead of time to see what albums she was playing most of her songs from.  It turned out she was playing almost all of Semper Femina, and then a few other songs from her other albums.  I’m glad I knew this going in or I would have been bummed not to hear some of my favorite older songs of hers.  because even though she did play songs from the other albums, she didn’t play the more obvious tracks.

But that also meant that I listened a lot to her new album and got to really appreciate it.

The stage was pretty stark: a series of white panels with some kind of ideogram on each one.  And flowers all over the stage on microphones stands and drums and everywhere.  Then she came on with her band: a drummer (Matt Ingram), a bassist, a lead guitarist (missed both of their names, sorry lads) and two backing vocalists Emma and Tamsin Topolski.  And Laura was out front with her guitar.

And just like that the band broke into “Soothing.”  I love the guitar work on this song, and it was really cool to see the bassist (who was actually playing guitar on this song) playing those noisy guitar notes and then getting to hear Laura sing–her voice beautiful in contrast to the noisy guitar.

Interestingly, she played most of Semper Femina right away, and yet she didn’t play it in order–almost but not quite.  The second song was “Wild Fire” and the backing vocals on this song were absolutely gorgeous.  The Topolski sisters shared duties, with one going high and operatic while the other stayed more grounded.

I have enjoyed Laura’s voice for so many reasons, and I ‘d always thought that her music was beautiful.  But while I was listening to her voice, I never paid enough attention to how great the guitar work is on her songs.  It was during “Don’t Pass Me By” when I was so close and could see what she was doing that I realized what great use she makes of her guitar.  In between songs she was constantly getting a new guitar–she uses different tuning quite often.

“Always This Way” is a bit more upbeat sounding and it was a delightful song to hear with the cool lead guitar work done behind her (and the double bass being bowed and plucked alternately).  Then she played “Next Time” and “Nothing, Not Nearly,” the final song on the album (she had played 7 of the 9 songs by this time).

Then the band left and she played some solo acoustic pieces.  Interestingly, she played three songs from her third album I Speak Because I Can (the one album I don’t own).  She played “Goodbye England (Covered in Snow”) and “What He Wrote” (the Topolski sisters came back out for this song to sing the haunting backing vocals).   Each was beautiful and intense , and the crowd was astonishingly quiet and respectful (except for the two drunk girls behind me–ladies, if you’re going to talk throughout the show, please hang out in the back of the room, eh?”

She played a pretty version of the Townes Van Zandt song “For the Sake of the Song” (although honestly, given that she wasn’t playing all that much of her back catalogue the last thing I needed was a cover!).  And then she played “Wild Once.”  After the line “But I was wild once / And I can’t forget it” someone in the audience started to whoop or applaud or something and then though better of it, but the mild outburst caused Laura to laugh during the song which was quite something to see.  Later on when the band came back out they were very curious what caused her to laugh like that.

Her final acoustic song was “Daisy” the first song from Short Movie (and amazingly, it comes from the deluxe edition, so I’d never even heard it before).  Then she played “How Can I” from Short Movie proper.  When she played the opening chords of “Sophia” I heard audible gasps from the audience, including someone at the front of the stage go Yessssssssssss.  And we all stood enraptured as she sang this beautiful song.

She had joked and chatted with us a bunch of times (she had even joked about the air conditioning which was very loud and when it shut off briefly it made her sound even better).  Although she did acknowledge that it was quite hot.  But after she played a stunned version of  “Once,” she introduced the band and had each one of them state a fact.

Drummer Matt told us that at a recent show he was supposed to sing  backing vocals but he kind of lost his place and just decided to lip sync.  And he got really into it and determined that he was a very good lip syncher.  The bassist, whose name I can’t find online told us about the toco toucan and the enormous size of its beak.  And that we should all stop using plastic straws as an easy way to help the environment.

The guitarist told us that his Philly barber (and he can say that because he got his haircut today) told him that President Trump would be assassinated within two weeks–so if that happens, you know who to look into.

Then Tamsin told us that astronauts are not allowed to eat beans for some time before they go into their space suits because if they break wind it could damage them (the suits, presumably not the astronauts).  And then finally Emma said that she won the most recent Facts Award and had received some delightful presents from Walmart, so she might be tapped out.  But then she gave us a fact which was deemed a winner and which I for the life of me cannot recall what it was.

Laura told us that the Latin root for compassion is to suffer together.  Woah.

It was at the point that she told us that she doesn’t do encores.  So if you were expecting one, that last song could be considered the last song of the set and if you weren’t then this will be the last song.  She ended with “Rambling Man,” a great upbeat song.

She played for about 75 minutes and I could have honestly stayed for another 75.  and yet I was in no way disappointed with the show.  It was really stunningly beautiful.

On the way out, Laura told us her sister was selling merch, so give her lots of money.

Set List

• Soothing
• Wild Fire
• The Valley
• Don’t Pass Me By
• Always This Way
• Next Time
• Nothing, Not Nearly
• (Unknown)
• Goodbye England (Covered in Snow)
• What He Wrote
• For the Sake of the Song (Townes Van Zandt cover)
• Wild Once
• Daisy
• How Can I
• Sophia
• Once
• Rambling Man