Iamthemorning

The Camden Club, London

20 April 2025

It's Marjana's birthday, she reminds us (several times!), but when they start with the never-to-my-knowledge-played Would this be, and move on to the almost-never-played Gerda, I'm starting to think it might be my birthday too.

She's using the opportunity to sing the songs she likes, instead of the more "expected" songs, and it's clearly a good choice for the occasion. Looking around the crowd, I know she doesn't have to win anybody over, it's an audience 100% with the band and won over before the first note comes from Gleb's fingers. We're here for whatever they want to play, and for those of us who have seen them play multiple times before, getting these rarely-played gems is just the icing on the [birthday] cake.

The Camden Club is an odd venue, long and thin, with the stage in an awkward angle of one long side, and several support pillars in the worst possible places. And Marjana has decided not to use the stage; she and Gleb are set up on the floor in front of it. In exactly the position where none of the limited stage lights are pointed. It's a good decision, because the intimacy of being so close to the audience instead of being remote on the stage really works for the event. But I'm in a seat where I can see the band perfectly (I have the crucially important of job of don't kick the table with the livestream camera set up on it), so I wonder how it looks to people off to the side? But Marjana is clearly aware of the problem, and spends the whole show dancing and twirling around and making sure everybody knows she's there. And though the venue has layout problems, they are more than made up for by a beautiful sound quality. Everything is crystal clear, perfectly balanced and at a perfect volume for the space. There are times when I'm not sure if I'm hearing raw acoustic sound from the instruments or mixed sound from the speakers, that's how clear and natural it all sounds.

Marjana is in an exceptionally good mood, her usual funny and friendly stage banter amplified to the Nth degree as, once again, she must know she doesn't have anything to prove to this crowd, she can just be her natural, entertaining self. She doesn't have to explain herself, or the songs' titles, or even their meanings, we all already know. "Dead girl." "Another dead girl but this one has flowers growing out of her." Yes, yes, we know, and that's why we're here. So she spends the afternoon just randomly saying hello to people and dashing into the crowd for selfies during the long piano breaks. It's just a beautiful atmosphere.

And as if unexpected deep dives into the back catalogue wasn't already enough, we get a bunch of new songs, which may be works in progress (one seems to be called La La La, which can't be a final title) but sound fully formed and played without any hesitancy from Marjana or Gleb.

The first set finishes with the best song from their best album, Lighthouse. Another one rarely played, because it needs a second voice and a big sound to make it work on the album, but they've arranged it for one voice and piano and it sounds amazing, the highlight of the set, expecially when they reach that moment and Marjana welcomes Liam (acoustic guitar) and Evan (percussion) to the stage to finish the song in relatively epic style before breaking for a short interval.

Liam and Evan stay with the band for the second set, which is a more traditional set of the classics, every one a live favourite. I've seen this quartet play each of these songs before, but never with this perfect acoustic sound quality, The band works so well as a unit that even when Gleb seems to go off in an improvised direction (such as Scotland in a major key, seemingly designed to equally delight and horrify Marjana), the other guys are able to just pick it up and run with it.

The whole event is perfect. Best birthday party I've ever been to.