More about: Laura Marling

13 and awestruck at a newfound somewhat skill, Laura Marling’s ‘Failure’ was the first song I learned to play on guitar. Carrying the role as an accidental guide throughout my life, her releases always seem perfectly timed to consume my affections. Alas I Cannot Swim soundtracked the first wave of angst, while Song For Our Daughter softened my lockdown, Laura taking me from youth to adulthood. And so it seemed only right that she’d be the first person to walk me into London’s Roundhouse.

A beautiful and iconic venue, Roundhouse suits Laura Marling perfectly with its echoey yet open design. Entering the stage alone, I’d forgotten that the poster pre-warned that this was a solo show. With her glowing white hair and small frame, she looks like an angel and sings like one too. Swapping between different warm wood acoustic guitars, she played her past albums in chunks, honouring the run-on lyrics as she began with a 10-minute-long continuous dive into Once I Was An Eagle. Laughing at her own sombre tone, Laura’s persona is split right between a Baez-style muse and an effortless cool girl, a through-and-through poet and your friend, as she throws out witty comments about the government, lockdown and more in her occasional speeches. Mostly though, the lights dim to blackness and rise again with nothing but applause to fill gaps, as Laura seems to re-centre for a new poem on some other lost love. For the first section, before the show was paused briefly as medics were called into the crowd, I couldn’t believe that voice was live and coming for her, so crisp and beautiful for such a tiny frame on a stage.

But as she restarted, dipping into later tracks from Songs For Our Daughter and Semper Femina, something was missing. When the curtain dropped to display nothing but a neon light, the lack of a backing band was suddenly felt. As it began to fall, I had a brief moment of excitement that a secret string section might be revealed, something to fill the silence that her solo guitar was demanding of such a huge venue. As she continued along through her discography, skipping instrumental sections and stripping songs down, it begged the question of why? After a year and a bit of lockdown acoustic sessions, and even longer without a full tour, why wasn’t this Laura’s big band or full orchestra moment, letting all these tracks get their full glory? Without any other instrumental support, her final songs of ‘Held Down’ and ‘For You’ ended abruptly and anticlimactically, with her acoustic guitar solo show unable to fulfil the magic of their musical finales.

Beautiful nevertheless, I just wish she’d pushed it, taken her beauty and turned it into something sublime with just a little support to create big, heart-swelling moments. Undeniably skilled, Laura’s solo guitar playing was captivating and her voice was as incredible as expected, but in a big venue in the middle of a big crowd, she perhaps needed something bigger to sing over our aching feet and the distraction they caused when the lyrics demand attention to be able to touch base. Or maybe a smaller more intimate venue where her words would fill every gap. Or maybe somewhere seated, as I stood there wishing I hadn’t worn heels and trying my best to stay focussed on her words.  

More about: Laura Marling