johnny flynn, laura marling @ cafe du nord: review, photos
I saw Johnny Flynn and Laura Marling (myspace) for an early Sunday night show at the Cafe du Nord.
Laura Marling was up shortly after I got to du Nord. She was on guitar and vocals and her band consisted of upright bass, violin, drums, and a second guitar (or mandolin, depending on the song). I’d heard some of her stuff on recordings[1] and I wasn’t entirely sold. When she started playing though, I realized it was something different; I’m still not a raving fan but I enjoyed her set quite a bit. Her vocals were engaging and her band played well. Their live arrangements worked well in the setting.
Johnny Flynn and the Sussex Wit was up after a short break. I’ve been enjoying his album, A Larum, since I heard it and I’d been looking forward to his show. Johnny Flynn and his band, the Sussex Wit, mounted the short stage young and very British.
Starting as his album starts, with “The Box” and “The Wrote & the Writ”, I got a good and immediate feel for the performance–it was lively, engaging and both well orchestrated and well played. Johnny himself was on resonator guitar for most of the show, switching at times to violin and trumpet. The rest of the band covered bass, guitars, drums and, at times, keyboards and ukulele. The songs are varied, but consistent: while Flynn heaps praise on the new American folk movement, especially in New York, his songs all hearken back, in my mind at least, to older British Isles folk songs and ballads. While the band was certainly not blowing the roof off of the venue, the songs were lively and even the dark songs were fun to watch.
Their set, in the end, was quite short, possibly a result of being a young band and not having a backlog of material yet. After a quick encore, the band was done. Short sets can be satisfying, but this was not; I left wanting more. But better left wanting more than wanting less, I say.
[1] I’d also seen her sing back ups for Noah and the Whale but that hardly counts in this regard.
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