ANGEL OLSEN

ANGEL OLSEN/TOMBERLIN AT BATH FORUM, BATH – 19/10/22

There’s a funny arrangement at BATH FORUM. Instead of a barrier in front of the stage, there is just a line taped on the floor, upon which someone has written “DO NOT CROSS”, and if anyone does cross it a “burly” (wife always describes security guards as “burly”) security guard comes and tells them not to cross the line. It’s a novel method, which relies on the politeness and compliance of the audience members, but tonight at least it works fine. There are only a couple of minor infringements and the “burly” security guards are certainly not stretched beyond their means.

I read somewhere that TOMBERLIN had to tell people off for talking during her set the previous night at Brixton Academy, but she has no such problems tonight. The crowd is incredibly polite and listens, even when she is tuning up, in respectful silence. Apart from wife, who whoops loudly. “Yeah,” says Tomberlin, “I love tuning too.” She’s actually really funny, Tomberlin. She jokes about her name (“Tom Berlin”), smoking weed, and a video she shot on a freezing morning in Manhattan (“You can watch it if you want,” she says. “It’s kind of up to you.”) She has a lovely, rich voice. She can really sing and doesn’t make any mistakes, which always amazes me with solo performers, how they never seem to make any mistakes, when I’m sure as shit that if that were me up there solo performing I’d be making all sorts of mistakes all over the place, so I’m always really impressed by people not making mistakes. And their confidence. That amazes me too. How are people so confident? It’s a beautiful thing to see. She ends with a singalong. “I don’t know who needs to hear this,” she sings, and I sing along so quietly that I can’t even hear myself.

Can’t even hear myself

Wife goes off to buy more gin. “I just overheard someone say, ‘I thought there’s be more lesbians here’,” she says when she gets back. “I’d wager there’s a fair few,” I reply. “More than you’d normally get, at any rate.”

ANGEL OLSEN arrives onstage to excited gasps. She doesn’t look too impressed though. “I love how grumpy she is,” says wife. She scowls at the audience, fixes us with a death stare and starts playing Dream Thing without a word. People keep shouting out, “We love you, Angel!” which she usually responds to with an expressionless, “Thank you” or just ignores. One time she says, “Say that to my face.” Last time I saw Olsen perform I compared her voice to an owl I’d seen at an owl show, and the comparison still seems apt tonight. It’s a powerful voice that swoops and soars in a way that seems entirely naturally and almost effortless. She’s not one of those singers that seems to be squeezing the notes out or emoting strenuously. Everything seems quite measured and controlled, but is certainly no less affecting for that. On the contrary, her music and performance inspires an outpouring of emotion. During Lark, for example, I look around and seem to be surrounded by weeping women, wife included. “If these were Egyptian times, we’d build statues of you, like cats,” says a woman in a pink corduroy jumpsuit. 

Surrounded by weeping women

At the end of the show wife approaches the stage to try and get a set list but she has crossed the line and is halted by one of the “burly” security guards. “You can’t cross the line,” says the security guard. Wife looks annoyed and I think for a second that she is going to resist, but she doesn’t in the end. She just accepts the line and the authority of the security guard. On the way out she looks around at all the young people, almost exclusively female, milling about. “I love this generation,” she says. “I think I’m a lesbian.”