Live Review: Jae Laffer, Georgia Fair, Karl Smith

Alhambra is a strange setting for tonight's line-up, but Karl Smith is doing a nice job setting a sweetly reserved tone while battling disco lights and walls covered in pastel posters for the upcoming club night, to a room of mostly band members, friends and possibly mums. His voice is particularly strong and works best in the last few songs when Smith swaps acoustic guitar for keyboard, playing sorrowful ballads while his guitarist weaves spindly melodies with subtle slide guitar.

Georgia Fair are launching their album tonight, the duo of Jordan Wilson and Ben Riley keeping it simple with just themselves, their guitars and their voices on stage to present their intense and achingly pretty country songs, full of the untouchable pain of the truly good-looking. Highlights come most often when their voices are used in harmony; Wilson does the majority of the singing and his vocals are clear and passionate, but Riley's voice adds a softer, darker dimension that enables these tracks to really shine.

The place is filling up a bit more by the time Jae Laffer and his live band, featuring members of The Panics and Mining Boom, go on stage, but the new arrivals are loud and uninterested in the show and this puts strain on Laffer from the first note, though he pushes through good-naturedly. The band's sound is a lot more stripped-back than on the album; strings and horns and lush production are swapped for an arrangement that lets Laffer's wonderfully endearing voice and smart, poetic and intensely heartfelt lyrics to take centre stage.
If only this review could just be about the world-class songs from Laffer's debut album, The Iron Glows Red, but sadly, shamefully, it has to include the fact that they're almost drowned out by loud drunk kids waiting for DJs and drink specials. It's not their fault – it is a club night after all – but fuck, whoever thought putting this artist in this venue was a good idea, whoever set in motion the series of events that led to one of our country's greatest songwriters having to fight to be heard above bros in V-necks yelling for vodka and cokes, should be set on fire. There are times when the band, manage to pull themselves out of the muck; songs like Right Above My Heart and Don't Make Me Wait rise to the surface on powerful rhythms and extra guitar work from Georgia Fair's Ben Riley, who was brought on in the middle of the set. However delicate closer, I See Myself In You, which should have been an intimate and beautiful end to the night, is almost completely drowned out, leaving Laffer obviously disappointed in this night of excellent music marred by bad touring organisation.