I love the deep patterns that are woven in the fabric of life, it feels like the hand of God giving you the gentlest of nudges as if to share a secret: if you look hard enough you can see Me.
I wasn’t a fan of Laura Marling and then in December of 2011, she was playing an early show at the McKittrick Hotel on a Sunday evening and I had a couple of hours to kill before seeing Jane Birkin at the Town Hall so I went. It was a tremendous show (here). But by 2015, I was less than thrilled by her going electric, didn’t think her last album, Short Movie, was consistent enough, didn’t like her interviews, and thought her pixie haircut kinda sucked. So that was the end of that, and I was within minutes of blowing off the entire Town Hall gig last night,when, the SummerStage In concert performance of “Beautiful” ended early and I figured I would dash to, ahem, the Town Hall, to see the concert which started late. The pattern nearly complete? But the big palooka added one more wink of the eye, “Beautiful” the actual musical is running in a theatre opposite the Town Hall.
So for this to come all the way round I should be a fanatic Laura Marling fan again after seeing her. But I wasn’t. Firstly, her lead guitarist had problems with his visa and didn’t make it over, so in effect you had a rock and roll move without a rock and roll guitarist. Next, the setlist was just plain weird: she all but ignored Short Movie we didn’t even get the title track which she has been flogging hard for months. Bizarre and for long term fans it got stranger, Laura had a guitar tech along with a bassist and drummer, so we didn’t get those extended breaks while she tuned up. It was a 90 minutes long, unheard of, the McKittrick set I mentioned above was a third that length. More: Four covers, the Dolly Parton “Do I Ever Cross Your Mind” was beautiful, with Laura thumb picking her way through it, and “The Needle And The Damage Done” was an odd decision, but I think she performed it to show us she could finger pick a lick like nobody’s business, though the (oh no) Foo Fighters “Tired Of You” and the baffling decision to close the night with, Steely Dan “Dirty Work” sure weren’t such great moves.
To be honest, I would rather have heard a handful of new ones than the four song suite that opened her masterpiece Once I Was An Eagle. I’ve already heard her perform that three times, plus it opens the Spotify live recording, I got the point and while I completely loved the performance, the stand up bass and drum couldn’t really add to the drama, now could they? I mean, how? You can’t surprise somebody with the same thing over and over again.
For the most part, I didn’t think the electric dressing up added a damn thing to the proceedings. I found the electric “I Feel Your Love” and “Warrior” irrelevant on both the deluxe album and in person and while adding Marika Hackman should have pushed the former song into the realm of what we might have got if Pete Randall had made it, it didn’t. On the occasions when the addition of bassist Nick Pini and Matt Ingram added something, they only emphasized what was already there. The pounding “Sophia” and the rollicking “The Rambling Man” neither improved nor changed, but they didn’t weaken the foundations and the crisp harshness of the takes were a pleasure in a different way.
So a good, strange, long set. Laura is a major talent so maybe next time round everything she has planted here will make more sense to us. Till, then, watch out for the patterns, that’s God or Laura or both of them are someone neither of them has ever heard of.
Grade: B+
