When: Wednesday 2nd October
Where: Shepherd’s Bush O2
Why:
I’ve wanted to see
her for so long
Laura Marling is quite
frankly a genius. She takes her singing very seriously which sometimes makes me
chuckle, but she delivered her beautiful songs with self-confidence and
self-deprecation. She has an understated modesty which is a breath of fresh air
compared to the ubiquitous self-indulgence of a lot of artists
(coughlanadelreycough), and she told the story of how delighted she was when
she found her stage outfit (a long, white, Victorian nightie style dress) in a
vintage shop, which was great on so many levels – firstly, she looked bloody
great and I wish people wore that style more often (period drama style capes,
anyone?) and secondly, a female singer just standing there and singing and not
making it all about the outfits and the legs and the gyrating was more than
inspiring.
She held court on a
simple stage, tuning her own guitar and not coming back out for an encore
(doing it her own way, man), and she was utterly spell-binding. There’s no
artifice, just a totally real, forceful performance that soars and envelops you
in its beauty and strength. The story she told about her cab-driver on her
journey to the venue was brilliant – on asking where she was going and finding
out it was actually her headlining rather than just heading to a gig, he
apparently said, “Oh god, you’re not one of those female singers always droning
on about their husbands making them miserable are you?”, which she replied to with a self-conscious “Noooooo…..” Loved it, especially as whenever I mention Laura Marling to my mate Claire she always chirps out a mournful “maaaaaa husband
left me last niiiiiight”, which makes me howl.
If you can see LM live,
just bloody do it. I will, every opportunity I get.
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