PHOTOS: BRIGID GALLAGHER | The Metro was packed Sunday night with Chicagoans looking for an alternative to the Cubs game. They fought police barricades and drunken fans in the streets in order to spend the evening with England’s Laura Marling and Los Angeles’ Valley Queen. And it was well worth the fight.
Valley Queen opened the show with music to feed the soul. Lead singer, Natalie Carol’s voice was large and powerful and kept the audience silent and still. When the rock and roll began, the crowd nodded their heads in approval to the beat. Valley Queen’s debut EP, “Destroyer,” is currently available for download.
The set started with quiet percussion that led into Laura Marling’s first single, “Soothing.” Flowers and vines crawled up the mic stands as the band was illuminated in purples and blues. Haunting and sensual, Marling, made her way through the majority of her current album, Semper Femina, released earlier this year. When she stopped to welcome the audience she said, “We come to Chicago a lot. We keep coming back and back! It’s always jolly good fun.”
Laura Marling’s band left the stage to allow for her seamless acoustic version of the first four songs off her album Once I Was an Eagle. Marling turned to the crowd, “It’s just you and me now, chaps.” Everyone whooped and whistled in delight as she played the opening notes of “Take the Night Off.” Marling is strong on stage, though her music is vulnerable and revealing. During the second half of her set she touched upon her entire discography excluding her debut. There was something for every fan through the years and no one was left unsatisfied.
Laura Marling’s latest album, Semper Femina, is currently in stores on vinyl.
SETLIST
Soothing
Wild Fire
The Valley
Don’t Pass Me By
Always this Way
Next Time
Nothing, Not Nearly
Take the Night Off
I Was an Eagle
You Know
Breathe
What He Wrote
Daisy
How Can I
Sophia
Once
Rambling Man
