Marina and the Diamonds

Since seeing Marina and the Diamonds on the NME Radar tour last year, I have been longing for her to make it in the hard world of music and for her next big tour. Now that she has and the day of her return to Sheffield is here I am very excited. Arriving slightly early at the Leadmill, there was already a substantial queue outside and because I am silly and didn't think things though properly I brought no drink with me. Did I mention that today was one of the hottest days of the year so far?

When we were finally let into the venue, the crowd was already starting to pile up in front of the stage and not wanting to miss my chance to be near the front, I took my place. The more sensible people were in groups and sent one off to get drinks for the others. As I was on my own, I wasn't afforded that luxury and had to wait patiently for my return home before I would drink again.

More than an hour after we had been let in, we were still waiting for anything to happen. If they weren't going to be ready at 19:30 then they shouldn't have said 19:30 or they could at least have told us that there would be a delay. By this time the room was getting very very warm. Hundreds of people all crammed in to a relatively small venue on a day like this is a recipe for disaster.

Finally after about an hour and a half, the support act came on. I had never heard of her before and at first she just looked like an oddly dressed young woman with her band. To be honest, I wasn't entirely in the mood for this. I had come to see Marina and as far as I was concerned this support act was just delaying her getting onto the stage. How wrong could I have been. She was really really good. The music was perfect, catchy rhythms and lyrics that complemented the main act superbly. I couldn't have asked for a better support act, the two were paired to perfection. Her name is Spark, she has a presence on almost every social network out there: MySpace, Facebook, Twitter and some basic information on Wikipedia so if you get a chance, check out her songs on the MySpace link. I am reliably informed that her début single will be Shut Out the Moon on the 12th of July and so this can be an unofficial single of the week whist she gets the logistics of officially releasing the song sorted.

Once Spark had finished, the changeover was pretty quick and it seemed like hardly any time before Marina came on stage in one of the most grand entrances I've ever seen. Not content with just walking on stage, a short film was played beforehand from a projector. It lasted about two or three minutes before she finally came on stage and after a brief introduction, launched into the first song.

Sadly due to my total lack of organisation I forgot to charge my camera batteries beforehand and so couldn't afford to take any videos. I did manage to get some good pictures however and as usual you can see the best ones on flickr and the full set on Facebook. It was a brilliant gig with some amazing acoustic sections for Numb and Guilty which contrasted brilliantly with the more upbeat songs like Oh No! (which by the way will be her next single!)

By the end of the night, I was exhausted and very very thirsty having been taunted part way through the show by the security hauling around crates of bottled water. At one point I hoped that they were about to start giving them out to the audience because of the heat as they have done at several gigs I've been to in the past but instead they decided to just watch them.