Meltdown mojo
This is only a partial review of this year's Meltdown because I still haven't even seen my third selection -- I'm off to that with woolly later tonight, but in the meantime, have a couple of reviews of the other two events I went to.
Tuesday night's orchestral rendition of the Bladerunner soundtrack, played by the Heritage Orchestra and mixed by Massive Attack themselves, was, I have to admit, a little disappointing. Firstly because, despite ongoing twitterings between several people, I still didn't succeed in meeting up with Jones and Chris, which just proves, as far as the latter is concerned, that I am in fact the world's most rubbish stalker (to rehash an old in-joke). I did, at least, manage to offload my spare ticket onto billyabbot, so at least I had some company and wasn't there all on my lonesome.
The second disappointment was the actual sound of the concert itself. I suspect this had a lot to do with the fact that, having only managed to secure the very last available tickets, we were right at the very back of the auditorium, miles from the stage.The performers were all extremely tight throughout the entire show but, because we were so far from the stage, for much of the time it felt a bit like we were listening to it on a CD. I suppose that also had a lot to do with the fact that Massive Attack themselves were mixing the sound, and they are big fans of slick production. I'm a fan of it myself, in the case of listening to their music at home, but when a live performance sounds over-produced, I find myself waiting for someone to just hit one bum note, to prove to me that there is in fact a human performing on stage. I suppose the original music itself is pretty over-produced, given that Vangelis is a huge fan of that sort of sound as well, so it was, after all, what people were expecting -- myself included.
My main problem with the sound was that, way at the back of the auditorium, it just wasn't loud enough. It's not that the sound wasn't crystal clear, but it didn't have the volume I wanted. When I go to hear live music, I don't want to be deafened and come home with ears that ring for days afterwards, but I do want the music to be loud enough that it forces me to switch off my internal dialogue for a while, just to focus on the music itself1. This didn't happen on Tuesday night until the final piece of music, which built up to a spectacular crescendo and was pretty flippin' awesome. That alone made the night worthwhile, as did the three vocal pieces. Guy Garvey's loose jazz number had people shuffling in their seats more than anything else in the set, and Vashti Bunyan sang a beautiful soprano number, but it was Omar Ebrahim's chant that made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up, and finally gave me the connection with the performance that I'd been looking for. It was just a pity that it came too close to the end.
I'm still glad I went, and I did enjoy it -- I just wish that I didn't come away from shows at the Royal Festival Hall feeling disappointed with the sound each time I go. (Last time I went, the sound was so bad that the bass drum made the air conditioning units rattle above our heads. Considering the fortune they'd just spent on refurbishing the concert hall, you'd think the sound would not be so awful all the time!)
Bladerunner-esque photo by latigi, posted under a CC licence
Last night I was at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, which I actually prefer to the Royal Festival Hall because it's smaller and the seats are more comfortable. I was three rows from the stage and had a really good view2 of the bands. I was a bit disappointed to be going alone, because no one took my spare ticket, but you know what? It was your loss (yes, you) because the show was really good. I was in a pretty bad mood before I got there, feeling depressed for a number of reasons: the crappy weather; lack of appetite (a sure sign I'm not doing too well); overtired due to the accidental all-nighter earlier in the week; and the fact that, once again, I was forced into attending something on my own because nobody wanted to be there to share it with me (this happens way too much, considering how many people I know). In fact, I was in such a bad mood I almost didn't leave the house, but I forced myself to because wasting £22.50 on one unused ticket was bad enough, but wasting twice that amount would have been stupid. It also meant that I was really relying on the music to prove it was worthwhile to have left the house, which meant I really needed it to lift me up out of my terrible mood, and I wasn't disappointed, because both bands totally delivered.
Being in a bad mood also meant I was a tough audience to impress, especially watching a completely unknown act like Aloe Blacc. The band came onstage one at a time, as their instrument was needed, starting with the drummer, followed by the keyboard player, bassist, and finally Aloe Blacc himself. They played a good mix of soul, jazz, Latin, reggae, dancehall and hip-hop, melded into one big funky mix of party sounds, including a "very loose-limbed" (to quote the chap sitting behind me) cover of The Police's Walking On The Moon. They also played a few ballads which were a bit on the syrupy side for my tastes, but were a good demonstration of Blacc's smooth voice. It was his upbeat party numbers that really put a smile on my face, though, which got even wider when I spotted 3D and Daddy G from Massive attack sloping into seats in the front row3. As soon as they sat down, they started nodding along to the music, and during one of the particularly upbeat numbers, 3D could barely be contained, rocking away in his seat like it was vibrating, clearly having a great time, which was really nice to see. I know that they both picked all the acts that were playing the festival, but it was still good to see how much they actually appreciated the music as well. Daddy G stayed cooler, restraining himself to head-nodding and clapping along in time4.
After a short interval (where I was glad to have remembered to bring a book along), Terry Callier came on stage with his guitar and a full complement of musicians: another guitarist, a bassist, a guy on keyboards, a woodwind player, one regular drummer, and one multi-instrumental percussionist. They were fairly typical session muso types, but incredibly tight because they all regularly work together as a band, so they had that understanding between them that you get when you've all been playing together for a while. This didn't stop them all from having the occasional ego-fest, where they would try to wrest attention away from their fellow-band members. This is of course typical in jazz, where every musician will try to get his solo moment, and most of the time the rest of the band will give them their due, but it didn't always seem to be the case here. Not that it wasn't good-natured, though.
The funniest moment was when the Latin percussionist, Bosco De Oliveira, totally wigged-out on the conga drums for ages, accompanied only by the electric piano playing the same little piano roll over and over. I'd been watching the pianist, Chris Kibble, quite a lot because he was really good, playing with incredible dexterity, but was always watching his own fingers during the more complicated pieces. This particular piece was just a small repetition, and obviously so familiar that he didn't even bother to look at his keys, he just kept peering over to the far side of the stage, watching for some cue from the percussionist to tell him when to drop back into the regular melody. I was watching the pianist's face, and at first you tell by his grin that he was amused at his compadre's actions, but then you could see that he was starting to get a little irritated. He even stood up at one point, but the other guy was so far into his conga rhythms that he didn't notice anything else. All the while, Terry Callier was just nodding his head, lost in the groove as well.
That happened quite a lot during the set. It might have been Terry Callier that everyone had come to see, but he's not an egotistical musician who hogs the limelight; he's someone who will give everyone else their due and step back to let them share some glory, and he was really making the most of having the support of a full band behind him. He's actually one of the most modest and humble performers working the circuit; he always seems so diffident when onstage, as though he's a bit surprised that so many people could possibly be there to see him. And then he opens his mouth to sing, and you know that he could hold the entire set on that voice alone, and not only would the audience sit enraptured, but he would have the vocal confidence to carry it off. This was ably demonstrated with a stripped down version of Love Theme From Spartacus, one of only four songs I recognised. The others were a rousing and righteous performance of Lazarus Man, and two songs for his encore. One was a lovely cover of The Beatles' And I Love Her which I didn't recognise at first because the arrangement was so distinctly Callier's that I initially thought it was one of his own songs. He finished with a great performance of Ordinary Joe, which I'd always thought was his most well-known song, but when he asked the audience to sing the chorus, it seemed like hardly anyone was. I was certainly the only one in my section of the seats, and only because I'd already been singing along, "from the opening line..."
photo of Terry Callier and his band by La Tête Krançien, posted under a CC licence
In the end, it really didn't matter that he only played a handful of songs I recognised. Sure, I was disappointed that he didn't play Blues For Marcus or Can't Catch The Trane or Holding On For Your Love, or even any of the requests that the audience shouted for (Dancing Girl and 900 Miles being the two I would have liked to hear), but regardless of that I still had a great time. Judging from the noisy reaction at the end, and two standing ovations, so did most of the audience (except for the woman sitting next to me, who kept looking at her watch). So you see, it was your loss that you missed out. Yes, you.
Already buzzing from a brilliantly uplifting show, I got another smile on my face when I bumped into annie mole of Going Underground as we were both walking out of the door at the same time, so I had someone else to share my buzz with. She and her friends were going for a drink on the Festival Hall terrace, so I tagged along. It took us forever to get served because we kept missing the eye of the bartenders, due to being so busy chatting and laughing. Either that, or the service at that bar is just very slow. The funny thing is that, if we hadn't both gone along to the giant Flickrmeet last Saturday, I'm not sure I'd even have recognised her, even though we'd met a couple of times last year. Had I we not talked last weekend, I probably wouldn't have said hello to her 'cos even if I had recognised her, I would have thought that she probably wouldn't have recognised me, but I'm glad I did because it was a really nice end to a really good night, so yay Flickr! And yay music!
My final Yay! Music! moment came as I was heading to Waterloo Bridge to catch my bus, and passed the lobby windows of the Queen Elizabeth Hall, which was full of people dancing at Silent Disco. It wasn't actually all that silent, though, because people were cheering the musical selections. I wanted to stay and watch a little bit, but it felt a bit voyeuristic, and I thought that people inside might resent being made to feel like they were in a goldfish-bowl, so I left. They were all clearly having a great time, though.
I can't wait to see Tunng tonight, especially now I know how good the seats are.
1It didn't help that I was finding my own internal dialogue really annoying! Don't you hate it when that happens?
2In fact, I have almost exactly the same seats tonight (29-30 instead of 31-32), but they were £7.50 cheaper. What's up with that? Why is a ticket to see Tunng only £15 and a ticket to see Terry Callier £22.50 when the view is exactly the same?
3I also spotted Daddy G on the stairs on the way out of Tuesday's show, in fact I almost walked smack into him because I was chatting to billyabbot and following the flow of people, not expecting someone to be standing just there, least of all for it to be someone famous. I managed to avoid being a gushing fangirl because, well, I don't really do the gushing fangirl thing, and it would have been way uncool to start in front of that crowd. But I got quite excited, as billyabbot will attest.
4Which is something I never do, myself actually. You know when you go to a gig and someone on stage exhorts the audience to clap along? I hate doing that. I will sometimes do it spontaneously, but there's something about being a whole crowd of people clapping along because someone else has told you to that I find really grating.