Laura Marling and her Merry Men
Soho Revue Bar, Walkers Court, London W1, England
1st February 2008

Shine
Cross Your Fingers/
__You Crawled Out of the Swamp
Your Only Doll
Ghosts
Happy Birthday Laura
You're No God
Night Terror
My Manic and I
Alas I Cannot Swim
Five Years in the Saddle

Laura Marling
with her Merry Men:
Kid Fiddle: violin
Jesse Quin: bass, vocals
Marcus Mumford:
__percussion, melodeon, ukulele, vocals

Infamously, Laura Marling was booked to play at the Soho Revue Bar last year but was not allowed in when the management read in the newspapers that she was only seventeen.

She took her band outside, intercepted the audience as it arrived, and did her gig in the street.

The Soho Revue Bar is probably better known as the Raymond Revue Bar from the days it was a strip joint. It was shut down for obscenity so naturally its management was a little nervous about having anyone under age on the premises.

Last Friday, February 1st, 2008, was her 18th birthday, so she rebooked to play the gig again and combined the gig with her birthday party. Her family was there and led the impromptu singing of Happy Birthday.

This was recorded on an M-Audio Microtrack 24/96 through a Sony ECM-MS907 stereo microphone, off-loaded onto a Macintosh Quicksilver 2x1Gb, split in Audacity 1.3 and FLACced in XAct1.4b4

The bar has a stunning sound system and everything was crystal clear. So I am at a loss as to why my recording sounded so muddy. I was about the same distance from the stage as the PA speakers were above it - say 20ft - so couldn't have been any closer but I was in among the audience, so the audience was much louder.

Using Audacity, I normalised the whole recording and used the Apple Graphic Equaliser to make the top end brighter. Then I divided it into song tracks, applause tracks and introduction tracks and used the Apple dynamic filter to reduce the applause volume to the level of the music and raise the level of the between-songs chat. Finally, I reassembled it all into one show, edited out the longeurs between songs, then recut the show so that a song begins each track and applause and chat and introductions for the next song come after.

If anyone wants the original file to make a different attempt at listenability, PM me and I will send it on.

Meantime, enjoy Laura's gig, short though it was. There were many ironies that evening. The face value of the tickets was less than the cost of a drink at the bar but single tickets were changing hands for £40+ on eBay; I arranged to stay overnight with friends who live nearby in case it went on very late but it was all over by 9.15pm; but my favourite was that, on my way out of the club, a chap was saying to the bouncer who was preventing him from coming in, "You must be joking, Man! It can't be all over already." So much for arriving fashionably late.

And I think we can look forward to seeing Laura with a new guitar - I'm sure I saw a guitar-shaped cardboard box on its way up to her private party after the show.

This show may be only 35 minutes but it is pure gold. Even so, I do hope she does a bit more at her song box concerts.