Laura Marling @ Birmingham Symphony Hall – 2nd March 2012
The glorious panorama of the Green Man Festival stages (2010/11) basking in the setting sun with Sugar Loaf mountain as a backdrop must have nearly turned the beamingly bemused, ludicrously talented, young Laura Marling giddy with disbelief at the sheer scale of her rise to deserved acclamation. An album or two later, she does it again. Birmingham Cathedral? Been there. But, the Symphony Hall’s another matter. And it does matter because its unparalleled acoustic tuning and post-modern art-deco setting is the musician’s dream venue come true. That said, great expectations are mutual but this evening’s concert left little doubt that they were to be reciprocated with relish.
Bedding in a UK, European and punishing air-miles North American tour, she featured six songs from last September’s album release ‘A Creature I Don’t Know’. Her five-piece band – a scorchingly tight but scatalogically cool ensemble featured hoe-down banjos, mistral wind mandolins and chilled-out cellos. And my word, didn’t Ms.M keep her guitar-tech busy!
Opening song ‘Card’,set the mood with its pizzicato plucking cello and stand-up bass swing that swelled to a Spanish horn crescendo flourish.‘So this is the Symphony Hall we’ve been told about. We feel a bit scruffy!’ She quips. With her signature radiant blonde locks, California-girl beach slacks and tangerine sweat-shirt, dress-down Friday at the Symphony Hall was forgivable. An accomplished guitarist and lyricist of existential, sometimes viscerally candid introspection, it could all be just a little overwhelming were it not for her wry sense of perspective and understated wit. How autobiographical one should interpret the lyrics is a matter for inquisitive, impressionable teenagers to ponder just as their parents did likewise 30/40 years ago with the likes of Carly Simon, Joni Mitchell & Leonard Cohen. The latter’s haunting guitar refrains most poignantly referenced in the opening ‘New Song’ of her short solo set. And she has the temerity to apologise for trying out new material. Somebody have a word, please. Actually, some Neanderthal did from up in the ‘Gods’ with a most unsavoury comment that quite unsettled Ms. M and drew the most severe opprobrium available to a SH audience short of mob lynching – ‘Shh!’ That told him.
Song over she received a vigorously extended Brummie applause by way of support and apology by disassociation. She wrestled with a recently acquired open-tuned (allegedly illegally logged) Brazilian Rosewood guitar she christens ‘Arthur’. ‘I Am A Master Hunter’ lyrics continue to generate fan-blogs buzzing with interpretive speculations as to its cryptic imagery. ‘Goodbye England’ with its plaintive, homesick lullaby lonesome snowscapes had the Hall hushed to a mouse-breath cuddled in gossamer gloves – and thankfully kept the tiresome ‘whoopers’ quiet for a while. Last song, eponymous title track from her last album, ‘I Speak Because I Can’ shivers with visceral lyricism that could easily be a Shelagh Delaney 60s bed-sit soliloquy or a Folk air lamentation; its humanity bristling with intense, elegiac resonance. So, Symphony Hall, done that – but not the T-shirt at £18.
Review – John Kennedy
Photos – James Hough