St Stephen’s Uniting Church, Sydney
Tuesday July 23, 2013 :
Perfect though it ended up being, Laura Marling initially had to fight against her own venue to get the audience to loosen up. Sitting on pews and stripped of normal gig accoutrements (i.e. booze), the audience was hushed and polite. As Marling took to the stage, accompanied only by her cellist, silence from the crowd allowed her strong, clear voice and finger-picked acoustic guitar to ring out, bouncing off St Stephen’s beautiful vaulted ceiling; however, she was soon cracking jokes and telling anecdotes to help the crowd to shake the reverent mood and relax into the show.
Although the crowd got comfortable, the mood remained sombre as Marling worked her way through plenty of new material that maintains her particular brand of lovelorn, Celtic-flavoured melodies and themes. The rockier feel of her latest album was certainly more understated live, given her lack of a band (Marling said she’d decided to travel with just two guitars and her cellist as a bid to ‘live more simply’), but the rhythms were still strongly felt in the bassy drone and driven finger-picking of Marling’s guitar work; new song ‘I Am a Master Hunter’ maintained the bluesy groove of the recorded version despite the stripped-back performance.
Marling’s voice was warm and rich, and her cellist provided some sweet and gentle soprano harmonies that added depth to the minimalist sound. Marling has a fondness for the pentatonic scale in many of her melodies, which roam nicely above the earthy guitar work. She also frequently changes her guitar tunings; as Marling joked herself, “25% of my set is tuning”. The many stops gave her an opportunity to chat to the crowd about touring, places she wanted to visit in Australia, and trying not to swear in church.
A slightly awkward moment came with an attempted cover of Simon and Garfunkel’s ‘Kathy’s Song’, which she gave up after forgetting most of the words, but recovered with a rousing version of ‘Rambling Man’, one of my favourite Laura Marling songs. The crowd was appreciative, and I was personally appreciative when she announced an aversion to playing planned encores, suggesting that people were welcome to think of her final song as the encore if they wished (my feelings on pre-planned encores have been expressed in a previous review. They are negative feelings.).
Marling’s closing song/’encore’ was the delicate and bittersweet ‘Saved These Words’, about letting go of a lost love. At that moment, with the soft blue uplights, candles, and stained-glass windows, the quiet church was the perfect complement to Laura Marling’s intimate, heartfelt delivery. It was a truly lovely gig.
Reviewer: Frances Bulley
Photographer: Richard Hedger
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