Last week was an intense week as far as shows here in Seattle...
Blonde Redhead played at the Showbox at the Market on November 24th.
The show of the New York based band was something I was really looking forward to.
I had heard of them a few years ago on Garance Doré's blog for the first time, and seeing that she was keeping on posting articles about how much this band amazes her on stage, I really didn't want to miss them.
The show of the New York based band was something I was really looking forward to.
I had heard of them a few years ago on Garance Doré's blog for the first time, and seeing that she was keeping on posting articles about how much this band amazes her on stage, I really didn't want to miss them.
Their performance was very convincing. Kazu Makino, the female lead-singer from Japanese origins, and the two Italian Pace brothers, accompanied by a bass player on stage, manage to create a parallel world in which you are transported all along their set.
Of course, this is due to the way lights and haze machines are massively used, but it's also due to their space music and by their behaviour on stage - Kazu is totally into it but she never does too much. During most of the show, the band would totally disappear behing a wall of fog, at the benefit of their music.
Of course, this is due to the way lights and haze machines are massively used, but it's also due to their space music and by their behaviour on stage - Kazu is totally into it but she never does too much. During most of the show, the band would totally disappear behing a wall of fog, at the benefit of their music.
If I usually like artists who communicate with the audience, the fact that Blonde Redhead hardly ever talk - if not to thank timidly the crowd - didn't bother me at all. On the contrary, I thought it was a way to keep us focused on their performance and to keep us in the state of half waking sleep-half quiet transe they had plunged us in.
In another register, Grinderman played at the King Cat Theatre on November 27th.
If I had never really listened carefully to Nick Cave's music, I knew for sure how big of a musician/writer/actor he is and I was pretty excited of seeing him and his band.
If I had never really listened carefully to Nick Cave's music, I knew for sure how big of a musician/writer/actor he is and I was pretty excited of seeing him and his band.
Their performance was the exact definition of what I call "rock and roll". Even if Grinderman's music wouldn't be the OST of my life - although they have some very good songs - the show was crazy. Those four elegant and (oh dear!) so energic men delivered loud and aggressive music that couldn't prevent you from headbanging (more in a Beavis and Butthead style than in that of long-haired metal fans).
If bass player Martyn P. Casey and drummer Jim Sclavunos are more of the regular rock and roll musicians (don't ask a precise definition, you know what I mean), because of how they behave on stage, Nick Cave and multi-instrumentalist Warren Ellis, really stand out from the crowd, or should I say, belong to the old generation of rockers: those who are not scared to sweat out the songs, to give everything on stage.
A.C.
This makes me wonder if there is actually someone among the younger generations of musicians who would belong to this category? I'd say probably Jack White in a certain way...
Any ideas?
A.C.
