"This song is really sad but it sounds happy", Laura Stevenson declared before launching into "Emily In Half". It was the third song of her set at the Electric Circus on Saturday night, and the third in a row from her latest album Cocksure, demonstrating a rightful confidence in the quality of her new material.
Most of Stevenson's songs are sad, of course, and a lot of them sound it, but on Cocksure more than in the past, she perfected the art of wrapping melancholy or self-flagellating lyrics in deceptively upbeat melodies - like Ben Folds sometimes used to do, but without the snark.
She’d already started doing that on 2013's Wheel, as exemplified by the utterly wonderful "Runner". As Stevenson sings "To give yourself a little bit of hope's a lie... you won't escape the sting until you're buried in the ground" the prettily twinkling melody stands in stark contrast to the despondency of her words. And even as you find yourself chanting "this summer hurts" along to the chorus, it doesn't feel like the summer hurts. It feels like it's going to be the best summer ever.
On Saturday night "Runner" followed "Renée" in a well-crafted setlist that mostly alternated between the blatantly sad and the deceptively sad to good effect. "Triangle" (introduced as "a song about fire", and let's face it, there are pretty much no bad songs about fire) followed the brooding "L-DOPA", before Laura and band threw in a cover of the Replacements' "Alex Chilton" that they apparently learned before sharing a festival bill with Tommy Stinson. "We thought he might become our friend", Laura deadpanned, "He’s not our friend yet".
There was some standard issue Scottish stage banter - haggis, Rod Stewart - before a lovely solo version of "The Move" closed the main set. "Old sad or new fast?", Stevenson asked once the full band returned for the encore, before acquiescing to audience demands to play both. "Old sad" was "Beets Untitled", the only song from debut A Record to get an airing, while "new fast" was "Jellyfish", an appropriate closer and a song so ridiculously catchy that I can't believe they considered not playing it. I'm not suggesting it sounds dated, but if it had come out 20 years ago it would have been all over MTV.
The setlist largely ignored Stevenson's scrappier beginnings, focusing heavily on the indie/folk of Wheel and the more driving indie rock of Cocksure. Four albums in, her back catalogue is dense and rich enough that she can afford to ignore songs as good as "The Healthy One" (perhaps because she had no accordion player - just a classic two guitars, bass and drums set up on this tour) and "A Shine To It". The latter is the sort of song I play for people and wait for them to tell me how much they love it, and if they don't then part of me never quite trusts them again. Its absence from the setlist was one of very few disappointments.
The other was the slightly sparse crowd. This might have been because she was also playing the relatively nearby Glasgow and Dundee on this tour (but hey, I'm never going to complain about bands playing too many shows in Scotland), but Laura and band deserve a bigger audience. Maybe it's just the musical era I grew up in - maybe her new sound just hits all the right mid-90s alt/indie rock touch points for me - but I don't understand why a record with songs as crunchy, catchy and accessible as "Torch Song", "Jellyfish" and "Claustrophobe" isn't a massive hit. Until the rest of the world catches on, I'll certainly keep showing up.
Setlist:
Out With a Whimper
Torch Song
Emily In Half
Renée
Runner
Claustrophobe
L-DOPA
Triangle
Alex Chilton
Master Of Art
Tom Sawyer/You Know Where to Find Me
The Move (solo)
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Beets Untitled
Jellyfish