Review: Laura Veirs, Night and Day, 2008

Original article;

http://www.bbc.co.uk/manchester/content/articles/2008/02/05/040208_laura_veirs_feature.shtml

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Laura Veirs at Night and Day

Colin Warhurst (gig: 04/02/08)

Playing a completely guitar driven gig means you have to know your stuff and Laura Veirs travelled the fret board in a hypnotic manner designed to slowly spirit us away to a quieter and introspective mood, wrapping us up in her music and lyrics.

Performing completely solo from her ever-growing catalogue, we were treated to a number of differing guitar styles. However, there didn’t seem enough variation in her songs until towards the end of the evening, when picked up a banjo and treated us to some more traditional American folk tunes.

This doesn’t mean to say that Laura Veirs couldn’t captivate an audience; the entire venue was firmly rooted to her performance with her vocals. It’s just that something was occasionally missing.

Still, when she hit home, she hit hard. Soaring melancholic highs slipped across husky whispers that silenced the room and made all other sounds appear blasphemous - the tapping of a text on a phone, the ringing of a till, the opening of a beer. Worst of all, the sounds of people nipping outside for a quick smoke earned any unfortunate nicotine addict evil looks for the rest of the evening.

Indeed, such was the annoyance at distraction that her own decision to halt fans’ favourite ‘Magnetised’ a number of times to complain about her monitor felt like a betrayal of the crowd’s devoted silence.

All in, it was an emotional evening of lolling, rolling riffs and the kind of fret work that is all too rare, that could have been even more memorable with a few more tempo changes.

As it stands, it was a unique performance of an already unique artist that was appreciated by all.