Laura Unto Herself

Laura Veirs/Midlake, Birmingham Bar Academy, June 22nd 2004.

For the first time in a long while, I go to a gig on a last-minute impulse. It's a toss-up between critics' darlings Wilco in the main Academy or singer/songwriter Laura Veirs in the nextdoor bar. After much chin-stroking contemplation, I opt for the latter on account of it being £4.50 cheaper plus I've always had a thing for girls who look like librarians.

But as I stride purposefully towards the bar into the three-quarters-empty venue, first I had to contend with Midlake who come from Denton, Texas. I know this because they tell us so in between every song. Maybe its nervousness, or just that they can't think of anything else to say. One of them does at least try, saying it's their first time in Birmingham, and what a great city it is. This is greeted with silence as the audience consider whether or not he's taking the piss. He keeps trying though, cracking a quip about the next issue of Kelp magazine featuring a polka version of Michael Jackson's 'Thriller'. More confused silence, much to the rest of the band's amusement. Poor guy then digs himself further, trying to explain the joke (never a good move) and even the meek Laura Veirs fans are telling him to shut up. In a polite tone of voice, mind, because while he may be no raconteur, he's quite a big fella and you wouldn't want to see him angry.

With their keyboard-driven melodic rock and filmed backdrop, Midlake must have to contend with Grandaddy comparisons an awful lot. And that's a little unfair, as they also have a couple of songs that sound like The Shins. But if their sound isn't exactly that dissimilar to a few other US indie bands out there at the moment, there is an indefinable 'something' about them which suggests they may yet rise above their influences. There's certainly some quality songwriting going on here, my favourite being the uptempo set closer (and lead single) 'Kingfish Pie' which has me bouncing on my barstool in a faintly embarrassing manner. Midlake, then: not quite walking on water yet, but hope's still floating.

There's then an unusually short break before Laura Veirs comes on stage with her guitar-strumming companion. Laura has quite a small frame and a kinda nerdy look about her, and yet at the same time gives off the air of someone who'd be quite practical in a crisis: if she's camping at this weekend's Glasto, you could imagine her clenching a few tentpegs in her teeth (steady) with nary a complaint.

Apart from a few songs I've heard on the radio, I'm not that familiar with her material, so I can't provide you with a setlisting, but she mainly concentrated on songs from her latest (much-acclaimed) album Carbon Glacier. The most striking thing for me was how much her voice at times brought to mind Rickie Lee Jones, particularly when changing tone and/or style mid-song. It's a richer, more confident voice than you might expect from such a slight figure, which helps carry along her unusual but beguiling indie-folk tunes.

There are some problems with the monitor levels, which perhaps should be expected when Dan the sound guy has a hairstyle which suggests he's had one electric shock too many already this evening. Her companion experiments with a drum machine for one song with mixed results (feedback issues) before some guy called Mackenzie gets his break and comes up on stage to play drums for some livelier numbers to close the set.

'I want to thank you all for coming', says Laura (in truth, she could deliver this message to us all personally and still be out of here before the 11pm curfew), 'I've heard [Wilco] are a happening band'. There's only a muted, polite call for an encore, much to the audible amusement of the barmaid (good excuse to shut the bar early, I guess). I perhaps should have turned round to berate her, but as she looks like Karen O in a Debbie Harry wig, discretion is the better part of keeping alive a vague and futile fantasy of getting lucky one day.