Laura Marling. In a cathedral. Not much could have gone wrong to prevent this gig from being a huge highlight of the Bristol cultural year, and thankfully nothing did. This was an exquisite evening from a majestic musician in an awesome arena for live music.

Bristol Cathedral is not the venue that immediately springs to mind for a folk gig, but for this current tour the 21-year-old Marling is playing in some of England’s finest cathedrals, and she told us that it has been a pleasure waking up each morning to find her tourbus parked outside another yet magnificent building.

After support from the Leisure Society making our hearts burn like damp matches, Marling held the sold-out crowd in rapture. Hers is a voice that soars and swoops like a flock of migrating birds, and in a cathedral setting the acoustics of her and her band made this concert a quasi-religious experience.

One moment in particular summed up the night. This was when prior to Sophia, Marling began playing the love theme from Cinema Paradiso. It was only a few seconds of music, but it was absolutely spellbinding.

It would be unfair to pick out other highlights for this was as perfect a performance as it is possible to get. Goodbye England just made you want it to start snowing, Rambling Man is the best song of that title since a particular fine example from Lemon Jelly, while The Beast from Marling’s third album, A Creature I Don’t Know, released earlier this year, filled the cathedral with a crescendo of noise.

A minor quibble was that with such a fine band supporting her, she may have played too many songs on her own, but with a voice such as hers and songs in her repertoire that make a mockery of her young years, it mattered not.

Bristol has not seen a night like this in many a long year. Marling is a very special talent and this was a very special evening of live music. In a cathedral, our Cathedral.