Many years ago I used to run a music venue. When you do this for a living, certainly at that time, you spend an inordinate amount of time listening to demo CD's from bands trying to get gigs at your venue. Mostly this is an exercise in stringing together acts for a triple bill evening of similar themed music. However, every once in a while you stumble across an absolute gem. Silverman were exactly one of those gems. Soulful, heartwrenching tunes of love, loss and anger, backed by swirling, dark beats and haunting melodies. And then there's Anna's voice. Dear god. I've always been a sucker for a strong female vocal, but Anna's is right up there as one of my all time personal favourites.
The problem that I had at the time was both very simple and conversely complex. I could not for the life of me find a slate of bands to put together with them for a gig night. Certainly not ones that fell within our budget at the time. I'd have dearly loved to put on a showcase of Silverman, Portishead, Björk and Massive Attack and then sit back and absorb the show. Sadly, a 280 capacity venue had little to no chance of pulling that off. The answer, as it turned out, was gloriously simplistic. I booked them to play my wedding reception.
Most wedding receptions I've been to in my life have been mixed affairs, so when we decided to get married we did it slightly differently. We used the venue I was running and had a slate of DJ's and bands for the evening, the centrepiece for the evening being Silverman. And they did not disappoint. Admittedly, my memories of the entire evening are a little hazy, but I do remember that they utterly blew everyone away. I remember at the time that they put up a short review of the evening on the bands website, which (thanks to the wayback machine) I reprint here in its entirety:
Feb 15th - Oxford - Bullingdon
The theme of odd and interesting audiences continues. Pitched into a club scene straight out of Buffy (canes, black tears, uber Goth) we weren't sure what we'd let ourselves in for. Got a result. All had a ball. We'll be back.
Sadly, the band went radio silent a year or so later. Imagine my surprise nearly ten years later when a message pops up in my facebook newsfeed advertising a brand new song available to download. Within seconds it was on my drive and in my earholes. It was like time had stood still... Everything I had adored was present and correct, the atmospheric swell, the deep beats and then there's that voice again....
Welcome back Silverman. You have been missed.
To download the new song for yourself then get yourself over to http://silvermania.co.uk/