Fine. Photo by Han Lake.
At long last! Nearly three years since I first went to see an act there – Manchester group Mandy, Indiana, who put on a rollicking show and who have a new album out that’s apparently well worth a listen – I returned to The White Hotel on Wednesday to catch a particularly dreamy double bill. This comprised Copenhagen-based singer-songwriter Fine (pronounced ‘finna’), a musician whose sensuous singles ‘I could’ and ‘Run’ were some of my favourite songs released last year, and Irish singer-songwriter Maria Somerville. I’ll be honest, I was less familiar with her material prior to the show – I was attending mainly as a Fine fan – but, given the high praise her album ‘Luster’ received when it dropped last April, I was interested to hear the dream-pop/shoegaze-y compositions it featured performed live.
Before either of them took to the stage, those of us who had turned up early-doors had the delight of hearing the support, Nashpaints, play. Real name Finn Carraher McDonald, the Irish guitarist began his set squatting in front of his pedals (a show of impressive knee strength and balance, as he remained in that position for a good five minutes), playing a series of reverb-soaked arpeggios that he had echo over one another.
Like with this first piece, his whole performance evoked the feeling of floating; those on which he sang, too, were utterly transfixing, like one of the last he played that had a groovy drum-machine beat going in the background. I didn’t catch the names of the songs he played – going off what he said, it was a mixture of old and new tracks – but every one was stunning. I haven’t got around to it yet, but I’ll be revisiting them in their recorded forms in the very near future.
The crowd, having thickened over the course of his set, did not have to wait long for the night’s second (and, in my opinion, best) act. Just after 8, Fine appeared with her band, featuring a guitarist, a bassist and a drummer; all of whom met the singer-songwriter-keyboardist’s enthusiasm with their own.
Her set commenced with ‘Coasting’, the breezy opener of her 2024 debut record, ‘Rocky Top Ballads’. Though I should preface this statement by saying that I do much prefer the edgier, sexier sound she achieves in her 2025 singles to the dreamy, almost ambient one she presents on said debut, I found that the songs she performed from it sounded so much better live. Perhaps it was the passion with which they were played, that I felt was less prominent on the recorded versions, that makes me believe so. What transcends opinion, however, was the fact that her vocal performances throughout the night were second to none – some, haunting. I’d compare her to the late Marianne Faithfull in that regard.
Those singles I keep referring to from last year, well, those I had anticipated the most, and Fine and co. more than delivered. It helps that all of those they played are just fantastic compositions: ‘I could’, with its incessant drum beat, low, swaggering bass line and echo-laden, shiver-inducing electric guitar part forces you, almost by gravitational pull, to nod along; ‘Run’ just builds and builds, the drummer again providing a steady drum beat as Fine’s serenading vocals are met with acoustic guitar chords, sometimes strummed softly, other times with great intensity, while sirens blare ominously in the background; the last of the three, ‘Portal’, made even sparser than on the recording when Fine sang the first few lines with just the bass line for accompaniment, before the guitarist and drummer came in – we were even treated to an extra verse, which I particularly appreciated as I think the recording is too short! Going off these songs, if there’s one artist I’m seriously hyped to hear new material from, it’s Fine.
Speaking of which! We were played two stellar new tracks, ‘Get In’ and ‘Goodbye Brain’ – the first a head-bopping, Stones-y rocker and the latter a loved-up, folky number; the harmonies, also hugely evocative of the 60s peace-and-love era, between Fine and her guitarist were just gorgeous.
Other set highlights for me included album tracks ‘Remember the Heart’, ‘Days Incomplete’ and ‘Big Muzzy’ which, again, I enjoyed the recordings of but which, live, resonated with me that bit more. The keyboard voices used on these tracks also made for transfixing listening when played just metres away from me by Fine. Her voice, I have to stress, was such a joy to hear in person: her delivery, while always some degree of soft, conveys the passion of love and longing so affectingly, even more so live than recorded.
That show from Fine and her band would’ve been enough for me, but we had another act yet to go. Maria Somerville began her set around half 9 and ended around an hour later. If I’m being brutally honest, it felt like forever. I would’ve been inclined to pin that take solely on my generally minimal interest in shoegaze as a genre – Somerville’s guitar was drowned in distortion, reverb, the lot, the entire time – had the friend I attended the show with, who loved Somerville’s material, not echoed that sentiment afterwards.
Maria Somerville. Photo by Han Lake
What we agreed to be the main issue was the fact that, so heavy were the effects of the pedals that she used, each song seemed to blend into the next, save for the odd exception. On this point, the tracks she played – most of them coming from her album of last year – actually sounded worse than they did on the recordings, owing to the guitar effects drowning out other elements such as her voice, the bass and the drums; ultimately, dampening the ethereal qualities that make these compositions so alluring on ‘Luster’.
For instance, some songs were practically unrecognisable, like the expansive album closer ‘October Moon’: a favourite of my friend for its ghostly, transportive lightness à la Grouper and yet, to her, it just sounded like some pleasant, yes, but ultimately nondescript shoegaze track. On the other hand, Somerville’s performance of ‘Garden’ was much more gripping, as one could make it out as such and, thus, enjoy what is a wonderful piece of dream-pop. Of course, it’s up to the artists as to how they go about playing their songs in a live setting, but I fear this was less of a stylistic choice and more of a result of an oversaturated soundscape; in spite of there only being three instrumentalists on stage, there was a bit too much going on,
This isn’t to say her set wasn’t good – I was pretty tired at the point she came on, sure, but I liked what was played – but that it ended up feeling forgettable, especially in the wake of Fine’s captivating performance. People came for Maria Somerville and got what sounded like her (though it was hard to make out) singing over the top of an hour’s worth of distortion, essentially.
Anyway, I was glad to have returned to The White Hotel after almost three years, and to have heard what was, within the realms of dream-pop, quite a variety of music. Especially intrigued to hear the recordings of what Nashpaints presented us with and, hopefully soon, those new Fine tracks…a new album, even? A tour of said album? Whatever she does next, I’m here for it, and will literally be there when she’s next in town!
