Wednesday 18/11/09 Marina and the Diamonds @ Hoxton Bar and Kitchen, London

Hoxton Bar and Kitchen is jammed full. Haircuts and handbags coagulate at the front, while the one-man bar struggles to keep up with the pace. This time two years ago, the crowd would have been here for Dragonette. Tonight, they’re at the bottom of the listings. Things are changing-  now it’s Marina’s turn to shine.  

Second headliners Wolf Gang arrive on stage. They don’t look as they sound. Almost rockabilly, their glossy myspace pop songs become more indie-disco when played live. Not that that’s a bad thing, mind you. They have melodies to spare, and enough charisma to carry on through a minor technical difficulty- despite a broken guitar string, they plough on, ending on current single ‘All the King’s Men’.

Marina enters and the crowd ignites. Dressed in a Letterman jacket, like a Pink Lady the morning after the night before, her hair is bouffant and her eyes smudged. She’s pleasantly surprised- she recalls “The last time I played here it was to about 8 people” and then leaps into ‘Seventeen’, followed quickly by ‘I Am Not A Robot’ . A manic Kate Bush, Marina is unafraid to use her voice as an instrument. She yelps and shrieks, Shakira-style through a Late of the Pier track, before sitting at a piano to play ‘Obsessions’ to an unusually hushed Hoxton crowd. It’s a short set- half an hour later, she’s almost finished. Sexy and frightening at the same time, set closer ‘Mowgli’s Road’ is startling. Marina is a star in the Lene Lovich mold- bizarre and enticing, intangible and terribly real. Earlier on during the gig, in an unnamed song about her experiences in America, she sings of the reaction she garnered. Bewildered press tried to pigeon-hole her, crying-‘You look like Shakira/ Actually Catherine Zeta’. Her reaction? ‘No, my name’s Marina!’ Idiosyncratic pop? The Next Big Thing? Nah, just a girl who knows exactly who she is, what she wants, and how to get it.