Daughter live review
With a wonderful debut album and a tour of venues several times the capacity they were playing this time last year, there’s no denying that Daughter have had a successful 2013. There’s a hint from tonight’s performance, though, that the band might be finding their success a little daunting. “We never dreamed we’d be playing rooms of this size,” admits guitarist Igor Haefeli twice toinght, and while the band’s swell of soaring melancholy amply fills the theatre, they initially play within themselves and feel ragged – indeed, it’s not until album-opener Winter, five songs in, that they finally relax into the performance.
From there on, though, the band hit their stride, creating wave upon wave of shimmering, melodic chime that, while occasionally samey, does their impressive recorded output justice. An obedient crowd help: they keep their silence through the arctic quiet of Tomorrow, and dutifully mumble along to a surprisingly moving rendition of Youth.
But for all the eventual triumph, there are reminders that Daughter are still a young band: with only one LP to their name, they resort to digging into early b-sides to fill out of the hour-long set, and Elena Tonra’s icy poise is somewhat undermined by clumsy inter-song chat. Their limp-wristed cover of Get Lucky, too, played tonight as an apologetic encore after Haefeli confesses to having “run out of ammo” is woeful – what would’ve felt opportunistic at best in the summer now just feels lazy. It’s an unfortunate whimper with which to end a show, but not fatal; indeed, it only serves to accentuate the strength of Daughter’s own songs and their sense of recent accomplishment.
