Gig Review and Pictures: Marina & The Diamonds @ Dingwalls (26.01.10)

Posted on January 30, 2010 by soulsidefunk

Over the last year or so Marina and her Diamonds have grown from indie-pop secret to the cusp of chart domination. She’s lost a lot of weight and now lets you know she’s “the reason you’re here tonight.” It’s official, Marina is a celebrity.

Despite seeming to become more and more ‘Hollywood,’ the music Ms. Marina and The Diamonds create is still great and not lost its verve. She fired through all her most familiar tracks, I Am Not A Robot, Obsessions, and Seventeen (which are the reason she was there tonight) with character.

The thing that first drew me to Marina was her style of singing which is almost operatic at times. This was at its most prominent when she sat down at the piano to play Numb, a song with childlike and nursery rhyme vocals to begin with however grew into something quite dramatic.

She played a new song called Rootless, which was a slow and dark number on which her voice seemed to ping over the top in accompaniment. The dark side to Marina’s music seems to be missed sometimes because it’s far deeper than the fairy coated image initally portrays. A prime example of this, and the highlight of her set, is Mowgli’s Road which sounded absolutely raucous live.

So there we have it, the first gig of what is sure to be a monumental year for Marina & The Diamonds; she’s everywhere already and is growing into her celebrity status at the speed of light… now, why do I get the feeling she’ll have p*ssed me off by June?

Soulside Funk

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