Tamara Lindeman doesn’t speak on stage often but when she does it’s like a dam breaking. “I have a lot of songs about not being heard,” she says towards the end of the show. With her bobbed hair and buttoned-up black leather frock coat, the Canadian singer-songwriter looks like a detective from a French movie. “And then I put out this record and suddenly I’m holding a microphone in front of hundreds of people and I feel very heard. It’s been one of the most beautiful experiences of my lifetime.” The implication is that if she’d had the acclaim she has now, she might not have written those songs. A lot of great pop music stems from frustration and urgency.
This much-delayed show is the Weather Station’s first London appearance since the release, a year ago, of Ignorance: her fifth album and the first to get plaudits across the board. There are times when an artist plays almost all of their new record, including bonus tracks, and you sigh. Throw us a bone. Then there are times when that record is such a thrilling and unanticipated moonshot that you can’t get enough of it.
