Stop! Grammar time
Music As they release their second album, London Grammar tell Craig McLean about sudden fame and overcoming crippling stage-fright
SITTING at one end of a ridiculously grand dining table, London Grammar are picking over the nuts and bolts — and the nuts and berries — of their dressing room refreshments. Here in the backstage area of Glasgow’s Oran Mor venue, a terrifyingly virtuous selection of raw vegetables and fun-free snacks are laid out before us.
“I picked all that and I’m already thinking it’s terrible,” admits guitarist Dan Rothman. “Although, to be fair, I don’t know where the pre-bagged salad came from. And I didn’t specify a whole red pepper.”
“What’s wrong with singer Hannah Reid.
“It’s very unsexy,” frowns Rothman. “The sexy part’s over there on the bench,” he says, pointing to a drinks cooler full of wine and Heineken. “I realised I only asked for gluten-free biscuits. I had a custard cream and it was l i ke p u t t i n g a desert in my mouth.”
“The Jaffa Cakes taste like they’re stale,” agrees drummer/keyboard player Dominic “Dot” Major through a mouthful of gluten-free cardboard.
“But the sugar- snap peas are delicious,” counters Reid with a cheerful munch.
Tonight’s show in this 600-capacity venue is an “underplay ” — a purposefully small gig. On their last British tour they sold out two nights at the 5,000-capacity Brixton Academy in one day. It’s the band’s first UK show in support of their second album, Truth is a Beautiful Thing.
London Grammar’s 2013 debut album If You Wait was a global hit. The beautiful collection of soaring electronic balladry sold more than two million copies, won an Ivor Novello award (the single Strong was declared Best Song Musically and Ly r i c a l l y ) and was anointed iTunes’ Album of the Year.
The trio, who formed at Nottingham University, made significant inroads in the US supporting Coldplay, headlined the John Peel Stage at
Glastonbury — they’re
it?” wonders back at the festival, high up the bill, this summer — and played to audiences of 10,000 the first time they went to Australia.
But with all the travelling came an unravelling. The three of them became, says Reid, “fairly unwell, in different ways. I went first — I had inflammation and a muscular strain on my vocal chords.”
They recall a particularly gruelling leg. “We had a flight to Australia cancelled, it was the day after that [Malaysia Airlines] plane got shot down over Ukraine,” says Rothman, 27, “and loads of flights were grounded or delayed. It ended up that the flight we’d have to get would mean we’d land, do a gig that same evening, then go to Japan for 12 hours. Bearing in mind this was after 12 months of touring. So we were all f***ed. We were close to being destroyed, physically and mentally.” about the spectacle rather than the story. Luckily, there’s a superabundance of spectacle to revel in, as an impeccably-drilled cast of more than 50 tap up a continual storm to some very tuneful songs. Particularly delightful is We’re in the Money, a glittery number in gold sequins in which the dancers go to work atop large model dime coins.
And yet. The characters are wafer-thin, the plot hokey and we simply don’t care whether “legendary” (apparently) director Julian Marsh’s (Tom Lister) latest extravaganza will make it on the
Big White Way once stroppy star Dorothy Brock (Sheena Easton) breaks her ankle. It’s even hard to
The challenges for Reid, a reluctant pop star with a voice of staggering range, went deeper. For all her cheerful demeanour, the Acton-raised 27-yearold is fairly shy and unshowy, someone who disappears offstage as readily as she shines onstage.
Yet as the main lyricist and the musician charged with delivering the emotive power of deeply heartfelt songs such as Metal & Dust and Hey Now, she had to dig deep night after night. The result was crippling stagefright.
“It’s a really physical thing,” she reflects. “You can be in quite a positive mindset but once you start getting nervous, and you get the physical symptoms of nerves, it affects your voice so much. So it then becomes something you have to really, really control.” It is, she agrees, a selffulfilling prophecy.
“But Hannah always does an amazing gig and an amazing performance,” chips in Major. I t ’s a supportive comment typical of the bonds between three close friends, who all played an equal part in the year-long writing and recording process for Truth is a Beautiful Thing.
“And no one ever knows how nervous she is,” he continues. “I remember one gig where she had to sit down during Strong. I think the audience thought it was because she was quite chilled — but actually she was sitting down because if she stood up she’d probably fall over with nerves!”
“That was France,” Reid nods ruefully. “Then there was a gig in Germany where I walked off and threw up. That was fun! It’s a bit like a phobia,” she concludes. “I’ve just really picked the wrong job. And I’m terrified about tonight. In my head I’m thinking, ‘We’ve performed in front of 40,000 people, this is only 600…’ But it makes no difference.”
Two hours later, true to form, the only signs of Reid’s nerves are a false start and some panicked swearing (“Did I?” asks this superpolite woman, aghast, post-show, when I relay her
comments). be over-bothered about the fate of chorus girl Peggy Sawyer (Clare Halse, who tap dances better than anyone I have ever seen), so little back-story is she given.
It’s set, notionally, in 1933, which ought to offer ample opportunity to sketch out details of desperate people struggling in the aftermath of the Great Depression. Bramble unfortunately suggests nothing of this and little of import appears to hang on the fate of the show within the show, Pretty Lady. We get lengthy, drifting excerpts from this seemingly entirely logic-free piece and, despite the tapping, our spirits begin to flag.
Until July 22 (0844 995 5500, 42ndStreetMusical.co.uk)