Lau, Union Chapel

I've written before about the passion and enthusiasm that Lau always generate within me so it will come as no surprise that this review may stray into hyperbole....

Down to London to see our favourite band and the chance to hear them perform live some tracks off their recently released album in one of our favourite venues.  The trio have been together for ten years now and continue to pull their folk music roots in wild, exciting and unexpected directions.  Imaginative, inventive, radical, each Lau album release has moved on to create new sounds, challenging the listener to explore and understand.

In a packed out church, the light of dusk strained through stained glass, the gig was opened by Siobhan Wilson, no longer known by her previous moniker of Ella the Bird.  A sweet voice and even sweeter personality were underscored by personal and emotional lyrics and some clean guitar work.  The set needed a more up tempo number included in the mix to save it from sameness, but you couldn't fail to warm to her enthusiasm and openness.

The noise level from the audience rocketed when the trio came on stage, and from the off it was clear that they were on top form.  A hugely varied set saw them deliver several of the new songs, with diverse tunes from the back catalogue thrown in and around.  Much of the current Lau sound makes considerable use of electronics, with sampling adding rhythmic undertones and Martin's weird and wonderful spoon and fork creation (yes, really) some more ethereal noises.  There are good reasons why Lau are often categorised as 'experimental folk'.

But it was also good to see them return to the acoustic basics and raw energy that made such an immediate impact on me so many years ago.  Lal Waterson's Midnight Feast can rarely have sounded as beautiful as it did in that vaulted chamber, while The Burrian, with it's haunting melody lines and oceanic changes of pace, got one of the loudest responses of the night.

Martin Green was in manic mode, standing, sitting, down on the floor, up in the air, the grip between himself and his seat tenuous, a magnetic, demented spectre.  Aidan O'Rourke swaying, twisting, looking like he was enjoying himself even more than we were.  And in the middle Kris Drever, sometimes sitting, but often upright, eyes closed, new electric guitar casting reflections out into the darkness.  Eyes closed, lost in the moment, dramatically lit, he seemed more rock god than folkie.

They left the stage to thundering applause and calls for more.  Did I say they were experimental?  Adventurous?  How many bands would have the nerve to play as encore the seventeen minute title track of their latest oeuvre, The Bell That Never Rang, complete with string (Elysian) quartet?  The result was something magical, a departure from what had gone before, creating a world all of its own.  I will revisit the album with fresh ears.

If there was a disappointment in the evening it came right at the end when I went to the merch table.  None of their specially created hot sauce (Martin had warned us) and not even a t shirt in my size.  Just as well we're booked to see them again later in the year....

I went out into the night buzzing like only Lau have ever made me buzz.  Fabulous.