Last night Frances, Paul and myself went along to see José González, he of Heartbeats fame (that’s the Sony Bravia advert with the bouncing balls in San Francisco, see here for more).
What an excellent night it proved to be. Not least because José González was, of course, excellent. But also because he had such a delightfully eclectic, odd, challenging and stimulating swedish support acts. Two, in fact. First was Frida Hyvönen, a solo performer with a minimalist costume (a dress, with pockets, as she delighted in pointing out to us: I gather, from Frances, this a rare and delightful thing) and a minimalist set. Just her, in white, and a piano.
Marvellous stuff. The lyrics and her voice made it altogether enchanting. Kookiness at it’s very best. Whilst some of the piano compositions itself didn’t vary altogether that much (difficult to be on stage on your own, having to do everything), the sound of her voice and they lyrics themselves compensated admirably. The gems she came up with in between songs, involving grapes (which I think she was munching in between songs), space, and what sort of pets we have over here. Superb stuff, sort of halfway between Bjork and Kate Bush.
Then came midaircondo. An all girl, Mac loving, glow-in-the-dark group who performed even more interesting music, much of it seemingly adjusted, sampled and integrated by the band on stage. Whilst some of the sections went on just a tiny bit too long in places, there was some really interesting ideas, tunes, sounds and experiences to be had. More Aphex Twin than Bjork this time.
That said, when we got to the intermission, we left to collect our drinks and found it thronged around the bar. A lot of people had been leaving during the midaircondo set, perhaps surprised by the eclectic nature of the music. I think this may have been the ‘problem’ for many: They’d expected quiet guitar music, to find half was experimental swedish bands pushing out challenging alternative music. Not a problem for us though! We all seemed to be beaming at the experience we’d had.
So, to José González himself. Whilst he’s ‘new’ on the scene, and doesn’t have a huge collection of tracks to play, he managed to bring in some new works which were good to hear. There wasn’t much variance from the album versions, but to hear him live was a treat: This man knows how to play the guitar. After the first encore (no Heartbeats having been heard), he returned to play a Kylie Minogue cover, which was good if somewhat surprising. But my favourite of the evening has to be his cover of “Teardrop”, by Massive attack. The lights went mad, and his rendition reminded me just how good that song is, and improving on that was an impressive feat.
After his second encore, he gave the audience what they wanted, which was Heartbeats, plus another track. Everybody left happy, although I think José González himself will have left a bit puzzled. Throughout his show, there were various attempts by a few members of the audience to start clapping along. Probably the beer and late hour had a lot to do with that, but songs involving lyrics with the words “blood stained sheets” in rarely – if ever – are the sort of songs to clap along to. He’s not a “stomping anthem” type artists (not yet, anyway), and strikes a more moody tone. He had to interject early on, shaking his head, to say “it’s not like that”. But the Glasgow crowd cared not, and tried again a few times in subsequent tracks.
So whilst the audience could do with swotting up on the artist before turning up and clapping and whooping along next time, I suppose it’s to be expected late on a Friday night on a bank holiday weekend. Oh, and how I hate mobile phones with cameras (or even without). Viewed from the balcony, a concert resembles more of a glow-worm cave than a venue, what with texting and pictures being taken, with their almost incandescent glows…
That said, it was excellent all around, with some bands to look up and investigate some more, and the reason for attending producing a fine performance that makes me think we’ve a new solo performer on the block to watch out for.
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