Hot off the heels of the release of her fourth record, Once I Was An Eagle, Laura Marling has returned to Australia to play Splendour in the Grass and a series of sold out concerts around the country as part of the Heavenly Sounds “tour of churches and cathedrals”. Tonight was her second performance of three at the Sydney venue, St Steven’s Uniting Church, supported by fellow Brit Marika Hackman.
Having toured in previous years with members of Mumford and Sons and similarly impressive backing bands, her shows for Heavenly Sounds are considerably stripped back, with her “paid friend” Ruth de Tuberville her only accompaniment, on Cello. In addition to touring without a backing band – which aptly reflects the production on her latest LP – she has also done away with a crew, meaning it’s just her and her two guitars, enjoying six tuning changes throughout. Thanks in part to jetlag, this mean Laura’s usual “fun facts” have been replaced by “tuning facts” as she prepares for the next song (“25% of my sets is now tuning”). What a raw an honest way to see such a celebrated performer; talk about taking it back to the basics.
But that’s just what the sold out crowd had come to see, this talented young singer/songwriter performing tracks off her latest release, along with only favourites, in the beautiful acoustics of a church. And you could have heard a pin drop. Laura left her crowd captivated from start to finish of her all to brief (and as usual, encoreless) hour or so set. Ruth, who also appears on the latest record, assisted in banter as much as she did her backing instrument, though was only on stage for select songs. The set was weighed reasonably heavy towards her latest material – and even some newer tracks (one which may or may not have been called “David”), with Laura admitting she’d already written another record. Kicking things off with “Be Gone Beast” and among the highlights of the set were “Master Hunter” (sans the f-bomb), a brief version of Simon & Garfunkel‘s “Kathy’s Song”, “Rambling Man”, “What He Wrote”, “I Speak Because I Can” (my personal favourite Marling track) and set closer “Saved These Words”.
Laura Marling is a incredibly talented artist. Her songwriting is beyond her years to the point where I think she may actually be a ghost, embodying the body of a younger girl so as to deliver such eloquent lyrics. Though even in saying that – and people have been saying it since the beginning – it’s hard to argue that Marling hasn’t been progressing greatly as a songwriter from album to album. I daresay her “old soul” maybe be 75 by the time she releases her fifth record, which doesn’t sound that far away, and ever the more Dylan-esque in her delivery. And what better way to see that performed, in all its rawness, than in a church.
A beautiful night of music… “heavenly sounds” indeed.
Photos by Johnny Au. See the full photo gallery from the night HERE.
