Pure music that pierces the heart

Laura Veirs
Thekla
Monday, January 25

By Susie Weldon

Laura Veirs may not have the instant name recognition of pop stars such as Lady Gaga or Lily Allen but she’s been quietly gathering a sizeable cult following since releasing her first album in 1999.

Which is why her enthusiastic fans were not only willing to turn out on a cold Monday evening to see the Colorado-raised singer-songwriter at the Thekla, they were also happy to take part in some of the singing. They launched themselves so enthusiastically into a call-and-response harmony that Veirs later wrote in her blog that the Bristol crowd were the “best ooher-ahhers” so far in the two-month tour.

Laura Veirs: Music that leaves you wanting more

Veirs brings a warm, homespun charm to her performances; in her spotted dress, plaited pigtails and glasses, she doesn’t look old enough to be in her mid-thirties, let along six months’ pregnant.

But there’s nothing homespun about her stripped-down, folk-tinged music, her finger-picking guitar, deceptively simply, multi-textured arrangements or her hauntingly beautiful lyrics, delivered with a crystalline purity that pierces the heart and leaves you wanting more.

In between songs, she chats happily to the audience: it’s so cool that they’re performing on a boat, she says — even if it is really cold. It all adds up to a warm, unpretentious performance, after which it was no surprise to see band members mingling happily with fans in the bar as people queued to buy her new album.

This European tour is aimed at promoting Veirs’ latest album July Flame — her seventh —named after a peach she bought at a farmers’ market in Portland, Oregon, where she lives with her partner Tucker Martine.

It’s just been launched this month, but alongside the new songs (filled with poetic lyrics — “July flame / ashes of a secret heart / falling in my lemonade / unslakeable thirsting in the back yard”) she included plenty of old favourites, such as the lovely Rapture, from her Carbon Glacier album.

Veirs was supported by Nelson Kempf of The Old Believers and Eric Anderson of Cataldo, both of whom gained new fans from their engaging gigs, before joining Laura and viola player Alex Guy on stage, happily swapping instruments — keyboard, guitar, banjo — with ease. In all, a great gig that ended all too soon.