31 July 2010

Laura Marling at GAMH 07-27-10

Tuesday night T and I went to GAMH to see Laura Marling. I've been listening to her for awhile on KCRW and I still can't get over the disparity between her voice and her age/appearance- she's 20 years old, has two albums out already, has been playing high profile gigs since she was at least 15- and her music sounds like it comes from a much older person (whatever that means). 

Dylan LeBlanc was the opener - he played by himself, and although he was pretty mellow and not very loud his voice demanded your attention. Usually during opening acts the crowd can be obnoxiously noisy, but for most of his set there was some kind of spell on us... everyone was totally dialed in. Then the song ended and everybody started chattering again; the contrast was really obvious... anyway, I thought that was really something.

Laura's set was also excellent, and I couldn't help myself wondering, what if I had pursued music instead of architecture? She played a live set on KCRW two days after the SF concert, and in her interview she said her father taught her to play guitar when she was a child, and she started writing music as a teenager. Well, same here- I wrote my first song when I was about 13 I think, and used to "perform" in Jr. and Sr. High (her father was also a music producer; I bet that makes a difference.) What if I hadn't been so concerned with "making a living" and had pursued music? I suppose there's another side to that coin too... hmm. Inspired by current events, T and I have been talking a lot lately about "alternate career paths" and "what would you do if you couldn't work as an architect anymore." Substitute your own profession where it says "architect"- it's a kind of scary exercise.

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