Laura Marling
Grizzly Bear Review: Thursday July 1, 2010
Once a shy performer, the teenage Laura Marling might not have been keen on the idea of a giant circus tent packed with staring eyes. Now, still only 20, last night she owned the spotlight, and while her stage banter still bumbles, she commanded a reverent hush that suggested a woman who accepts that entrancing large crowds is her destiny.
She did it without much help. Her small band, including a double bass player and a cellist, started at pace with the violent strum of 'Devil’s Spoke' but soon she was alone, airing unfamiliar new songs on acoustic guitar and somehow still keeping everybody quiet.
It helps that lyrically she is painting ever more striking pictures. One new one, 'Rest On A Bed Of My Bones', was as sparse and haunting as its title. What He Wrote, from her recent second album, depicted a broken love triangle in short, dramatic lines.
A mass whistling solo on 'My Manic' and I eased the tension, as did her good-humoured explanation of why she doesn’t go in for encores. But there is definitely a serious old head under that peroxide hairdo. A couple of vintage covers, Jackson C Frank’s 'Blues Run The Game' and Neil Young’s 'The Needle And The Damage Done', were as bleak as her originals, sung with a pure beauty that merited that massed silence.
Painfully honest and hauntingly beautiful, all were enchanted by Laura's charm.
