As we rush upstairs from the bar the set gets off to an electric start with ‘Bonds Girl’. The song resembles Portishead, covered by Sabbath with a healthy touch of Grace Slick. The capacity crowd is lapping it up and a call and response bleat quickly echoes around the room as the first song finishes.
The first time we saw Le Lamb it was all about the performance. This time, as the second song ‘Healing’ takes hold, the excellent sound in the Folklore Rooms is making us relish the prospect of hearing these songs when they have been properly recorded at home. It’s not just theatrics. The music is dynamic and interesting.
But the theatrics of this band are so delicious. Much like Obelix, Mia was clearly dropped in the vat of performance super strength druidic magic formula from the moment she was born. The confidence and sass oozes from every pore of her being.
Mia reads from a book dramatically lit by bike lights. The strange tale of a leg of lamb is actually an extract from Roald Dahl’s Tales of the Unexpected. The song after bounces from jazz rock to Zeppelin. It grooves and it snakes, before Mia’s throat is slit by her guitarist.
We start to lose track of what is going on. Are we still listening to the same song? Is it a song cycle? Is it a rock opera? Who knows? Our note-taking hand is fist-pumping the air and we’re having fun as the music hits a massive climax.
Suddenly we’re back squarely to ‘White Rabbit’-era Jefferson with a touch of Eartha Kitt as the military drums of ‘Siren’s Call’ lead us in a freakout that would have turned Ken Kesey’s head in San Francisco ’67.
Mia leaves the stage and the band play the hell out of their instruments, and there’s a phenomenal drum solo. She then pops up on a stool, wearing a cowboy hat at the back for ‘Scarlet Woman’; a country murder ballad that somehow mutates into a 70s punk stomper with a chorus of ‘Fuck Yeah’.
Far be it for SOURCE to condone such potty-mouthed activity but we wholeheartedly agree; “Fuck Yeah” indeed!
The Folklore Rooms, 23rd August 2024
Words by Nick McAllister
Pictures by Jane Hancock
