The Weather Station: Union Chapel, London – live review

The Weather Station
Union Chapel, London
6 September 2022

Canadian songwriter Tamara Lindeman and her project The Weather Station create an all-inclusive ecosystem at Islington’s Union Chapel.

Although originally from North America, The Weather Station and their leader Tamara Lindeman have a steadily growing following in the UK. This is the band’s second performance in London this year, preceded by the spring show at Scala. The dim space of the venue is chock-a-block with fans of various ages but mostly thirty-plus. Some know songs well enough to sing along, others contemplate with excitement.

Starting with an acapella version of Stars, the title track from her latest album, Tamara Lindeman creates an ecosystem where her voice and acoustics of the church are dominant elements. While singing, she recollects her childhood memories: “When I was a child, my mother’d send me outside / On a moonless night to see the light / Cast out in some ancient storm / With a woollen blanket to keep me warm”. Although these lines, delivered in a close-mic fashion, seemingly reflect on her personal experience they could also address the formative period in the history of humankind. In the darkness of the church’s internal space, one could connect to that internal child’s feeling of curiosity, wonder and sense of being, content with the minimum resources he or she possesses.

Both the lyrics and the singer’s commentaries between songs hint at the special mission of her band. The Weather Station is not simply a music project but a creative outlet for social activism. Her 2021’s album Ignorance and following How Is It That I Should Look at the Stars are a response to the global climate crisis. Veiled in the wistful folk arrangement, these songs contemplate issues that concern the troubled romance between the planet Earth and its inhabitants. Lindeman doesn’t hesitate to connect to the feelings of her audience. “It is the hardest time to be alive psychically because we have to know and we are not necessarily equipped to know, I think one of the hardest things is just this reality that we are born into this country or my country, just by naturally being born here, we are born into this role of a wrongdoer”. In her words, “love and care for each other and for the world” is an underlying motif in the mission to slow down climate change.

The intimacy of Lindeman’s songs resonates with the reverberating hall of Union Chapel. “We are all intimidated by the space”, she says addressing the interior of the 19th-century building in the gothic revival style. In a moment, the singer moves to the piano to perform solo versions of Song and Magpie. Like many of The Weather Station’s songs, the latter has an element of storytelling. It describes the protagonist’s experience of watching a mysterious bird and being informed that this Australian species is named magpie in analogy with a similar-looking creature in Europe. That first man, who called an unknown yet seemingly familiar bird a magpie, must have been homesick, thinks Lindeman. There is always a trick in the act of naming something. “When we see something unfamiliar we want to name it, to make it small, make it familiar”, she says. “And we feel that we understand it and, yet, whenever we do that, we essentially make it certain that we will not understand it”.

Although Union Chapel is a challenging venue (especially for drums), The Weather Station achieve harmony with the environment. The appearance of guest musicians Sam Amidon and Cassandra Jenkins on the encore contributed to the communal feel. There are almost no stage lights used during the show which perfectly fits their agenda. Although, possibly it is a directive on behalf of the Chapel’s management who are testing modes of survival before the energy bills rise further. Regardless of the reason, the setting made a perfect match to The Weather Station’s captivating presence.

More information about The Weather Station is on their official website, Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.

All words by Irina Shtreis. More writing by Irina can be found in her author’s archive.

Source: louderthanwar.com