So then, here we are, my first review in 6 months. GASP!If you don't know already, Laura Marling is one of the U.K's most talented and renowned folk musicians. On her fourth album, the 23 year old is on tour in the U.K again with just her guitar for company.
This is a gig I was very excited about. I'm a bit of a Marling newbee as I have only admired her for about a year but honestly, she is one of the best musicians I have ever had the pleasure of listening to and needed to see her live.
And so, I booked two tickets for the Birmingham Symphony Hall.
I was incredibly lucky as the day of the concert coincided with the NUT strike and so my school was closed. It was nice to have a chilled build up to the concert with Josh and not feel that stressed feeling you get when you go to a concert after school whilst your homework sits on your desk.
So my mother drove us up and whilst we went to the gig, she watched that film about Princess Diana (which she says was crap, like I wouldn't have guessed!).
The venue was beautiful and I felt that we had amazing seats, right at the top. Although we were just about as far back as you could get, I really loved being able to look down on the person who has become one of my biggest idols.
Nick Mulvay was the support and he was brilliant. I can only describe him as Alt-J if they were just guitar and vocals and one guy. I don't think I've been so relaxed whilst listening to something before, I do think that he is one to watch in the future.
And so she began with the songs from "When the Bird was Saved" ("Take the Night Off", "I Was An Eagle", "You Know" and "Breathe"), her short film released just before the album as a preview, which were awesome but nothing compared to "Master Hunter" which followed it. Obviously, the song was so good that the guitar decided it had done it's work for the night as whilst she was tuning for her next song (which I think was "Ghosts") a string snapped. As a guitarist, I felt her pain and it was nice to see her frustration as it made me feel that even though she is one of my most loved and highly respected musicians, things still went wrong for her.
It wasn't the end of the world though because she had her old guitar on hand which she described as being a "grumpy old man" because she didn't really play it any more. A lot of people have described her as being shy because of comments like this but I put it down to not feeling too above her audience. In terms of stage presence, I would say she is one of the best I have seen because of it as although an amazing talent, there is also a lot of modesty there which I think is one of the reasons she doesn't do encores, though there may believe that that proves the opposite. Are people expecting her to prance around the stage like Mick Jagger?
So as I was saying, "Ghosts". She did a lot more of the old stuff than I thought she would (only doing about six songs off the new album) but I liked it because I had forgotten how good some of the old stuff was as I had focussed so much on the new album. From what I can remember, she performed: "Alas I Cannot Swim", "I Speak Because I Can", "Rambling Man" and "What He Wrote" from previous albums which was a nice contrast to the newer, darker stuff.
I do believe that even though it was just her and her guitar, this gig was amongst the best concerts I've ever seen because she still captured the audience just as much as a full band could. It was also wonderful to see such a diverse audience, from about 8-80, as it was nice to see in practice how music brings people together. I honestly didn't realise how popular Laura Marling was amongst all age groups. Truly wonderful.
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