A gig in a cathedral was definitely a first for me. I'm more used to the hot, stuffy rooms and the loud, crowded arenas but the minute we began climbing the dark hill to reach the cathedral looming in the distance I knew this was going to be something special. After rushing to grab some front row seats we all sat huddled in our chunky cardigans and coats excited, cold, and highly anticipating what was to come.
Walking on stage, with her platinum blonde locks catching the light as she moved, Laura looked almost an ethereal being. An ethereal being that was about to unleash an even more magical voice. Opening on new song 'I Was Just A Card', the longest cathedral in the world managed to help transform Laura's voice from a thing of already great beauty to an altogether different wonder. Every note lingered. Every falsetto sent shivers. The entire room was already cast under the Marling spell.
The acoustic part of the show was where this was most apparent. The band leaving Laura to perform solo, with a single light on her and the rest of us plunged in darkness. Each note echoed around the walls and she seemed to command all the power of a choir with her voice alone. The intensity peaking during 'Night After Night', where Marling appeared not now as a 21 year old girl, but rather as an incarnation of some ancient muse, recounting a tale from centuries old. Nobody dared even whisper.
The band returned for final song 'Rambling Man', an old favourite for everyone, ending in rapturous applause, a standing ovation and screams of 'I LOVE YOU LAURA!' (myself included) But the truth is Marling was indeed loved enough to pack out one of the largest cathedrals in the world, not a feat that many artists could pull off. And looking round, everyone that night knew they had experienced something special. Leaving, Marling had been cemented in my mind as the unrivaled songwriter of my generation one of the modern greats.
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