Daughter

Sometimes, to determine whether a concert - or a show in the broadest sense of the word - has truly worked, all it takes is a small gesture made by a handful of people, not necessarily by the band or the artist on stage. It can be as simple as a boy and a girl deciding to break the austerity of a theatre by going to stand right up against the stage.

That's exactly what happened at the Antoniano in Bologna, for the much-anticipated Daughter show, which sold out in advance to the tune of around 600 tickets - impressive numbers for a band with just one album to its name ("If You Leave") and not exactly built for radio play, especially in Italy. The Bologna theatre has for some time now been running a partnership with another historic name in the Emilian capital, the Covo Club, hosting the likes of John Grant, Low and now, finally, the London band themselves. Among other things, Bologna can boast a run of concerts over just 10 days that would make any other Italian city jealous: Local Natives, Steven Wilson, Suede, Suuns, Mark Lanegan (as well as Daughter, of course) are the headline names of a particularly packed November.

Choosing a theatre as the venue brings a few related advantages, chief among them the respect for the advertised start times, which is increasingly rare around here these days; Majke Voss Romme's set, aka Broken Twin, thus kicks off at 9.15pm and wins the crowd over with the personality this Danish artist brings to the stage. With her on keys and Nils Gröndahl on violin, the minimal, aching compositions are elevated further by Voss Romme's genuinely striking voice; her official bio describes her songs this way: "They encompass loneliness, love, and reflect the thoughts of a girl entering adulthood, fixated on the idea of touching people by bringing something beautiful into the world." With one EP under her belt ("Hold On To Noghing") and an LP in the works, Broken Twin will most likely be one of the names to watch next year.

The headliners of the evening draw a very different kind of attention when they take the stage around 10.15pm: the crowd, spanning a wide range of ages, is already enraptured, yet remains seated, composed and respectful. Perhaps too much so, even by Daughter's own standards, so much so that by the end of the second song Igor Haefeli already invites the audience to stand up, if they feel like it. The invitation falls on deaf ears, though, perhaps due to the excessive reserve of Italian audiences, who are capable of talking non-stop throughout an entire club show, yet are afraid to even breathe once seated in a theatre. And so, for a quarter of the show, we witness a performance that's flawless in terms of style and sound - another advantage of the theatre setting - but lacking in empathy (especially for those at the back of the hall): no small issue for a band that makes empathy one of its main strengths. "You're a very respectful audience," Igor Haefeli will eventually say, seemingly almost embarrassed by such stillness. We'd already had confirmation, during their previous show in Italy, that Daughter truly know what they're doing on stage and can't simply be dismissed as a "product of hype" - and since then, we can safely say the London trio's live set has only gotten better.

Elena Tonra and Haefeli are the two true focal points of the evening: she thanks to that mix of shyness and spontaneity that wins people over instantly, as well as her central role as writer/singer; he is the musical mind behind the project, the one who, more than anyone else, creates and invents, giving the songs that extra touch that elevates them live. But as we said at the start of this report, a small gesture can make all the difference: that's exactly what happens during "Winter," when two people go and stand right up against the stage. From there, it takes only a moment for half the theatre to get on its feet: many sit down on the floor in front of the first row, others stand, filling the side spaces and the central area, closing with their physical presence right up against the stage the emotional distance that had, until then, separated them from the band. The concert takes off from this point on: Daughter loosen up on stage, helped by the informal atmosphere - by theatre standards - that builds up; the audience, while still maintaining due "respect" for the venue, is finally free to move and give something back to the band too. The rest is down to the improvements the band has clearly made in just a few months, thanks to some arrangement choices that nod toward Xx; the highlights of the evening are a relatively lively "Candles" and the now-anthemic "Youth," where this time we don't get a crowd singalong, but rather a widespread whisper: everyone knows the words, but nobody wants to ruin the magic of the moment.

The encore is once again entrusted to "Get Lucky," a cover that has certainly brought the English band luck and plenty of new fans, and we wouldn't rule out that quite a few people in the room first came across Daughter precisely through this version of the Daft Punk track. Tonight's rendition is decidedly more polished and less improvised than back in July, when, caught off guard, Daughter had found themselves forced into an encore demanded loudly by the crowd; a sign that this trio of young English musicians is now well aware of the affection and following they've managed to build with their fanbase in roughly a year.

The evening ends like this, with a rush on the merchandise stand and plenty of satisfied faces, all in agreement on having witnessed an excellent performance.

Special thanks to Martina Gibertini for the photo contributions.

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