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RUMINATIONS ON: ‘ELVIS’: THE MOVIE

Posted on July 20, 2022 by Au Contraire Voltaire

Elvis (2022): the sixth feature film delivered to audiences this year by
Australian auteur – Baz Luhrmann – is the first film in my 36 years that I have
ever visited the cinema more than once to see (twice within 4 days….so far). I
have been wondering to myself why this film, in particular, compelled me to
return to it, and so soon, given that I am far from an avid cinema-goer. I have
been thoroughly entertained by films in the past without the desire return for
another showing. So entertainment value is not sufficient enough an explanation.

The film is told from the perspective of Colonel Tom Parker – represented as a
greedy, unscrupulous, egotistical svengali in Luhrmann’s movie – who helped
orchestrate Elvis Presley’s rise to global icon, while, as the film would have
you believe, simultaneously, and single-handedly, expediting his tragic death.
Elvis the movie, thus, seeks from the outset to stretch the usual parameters of
the movie biopic formula. Although Parker is an unexpected and novel choice to
narrate the tumultuous life and career of a cultural titan. What is not
altogether apparent is why Luhrmann chose to tell the story of Elvis in this
way. Yes – a heavy focus throughout the film settles around the relationship
between Presley and the enigmatic Parker, but I’m not sure what value having the
Colonel as the mouthpiece adds to the movie (any comments offering an
explanation are welcome, below).

It is as if Luhrmann has put Parker on trial by motion picture. His crime? The
destruction of Elvis in body and soul. A dubious, even ahistorical, charge, but
Luhrmann isn’t one to let facts stand in the way of a magnificent story, and we,
the audience, are the better for it. The moments in Elvis’ life which are
depicted in the movie – at various times factually, loosely based on slivers of
truth, or wholly fabricated depending on the scene in question – can be viewed
as evidence gathered by Lurhmann as chief prosecutor, as well as writer,
director and producer, leaving Tom Hanks – who plays the role of Elvis’ manager
in the film – to plead Parker’s case, breaking the fourth wall to remonstrate,
in a sickly pathetic and arrogant tone, with the audience. By the end, Hanks, as
Parker, in an effort to avoid any accountability, subverts the judicial process
and calls the audience-cum-jury to the stand, pointing an accusing finger at who
he believes to be Elvis’ executioners: “it was love [that killed him], his love
for you [us]”.

Of course, in the end, under the volume of evidence, both factual and conjured
up by Luhrmann’s creative whimsy, it is a futile effort for the supposed
defendant. The film condemns him to a whimpering death at its conclusion while
Elvis’ star soars to unreachable heights. Such is the enduring adoration and
allure of Elvis, as with any cherished cultural icon, especially one taken from
the public tragically and at a painfully early age (Presley was just 42 when he
died), that we will always cling onto the sanitised myth. Our heroes are
untouchable, beyond reproach, despite evidence to the contrary. We consistently
search for antagonists in the timeline of a legend’s life. A person, or people,
onto whom we can pin the provenance of our beloved stars’ flaws, vices, and
ultimate demise. The life of Elvis is a landmark case in this type of
hagiography.

But we shouldn’t be too hard on ourselves. It is natural for us, as human
beings, to want to protect the purity and sanctity of what our heroes represent,
and how elated their art makes us feel. Even if it means deluding ourselves to
varying degrees. After all, our passions and the celebrities and artists we
revere become extensions of ourselves, to an extent. To admit to ourselves that
our heroes aren’t pure and perfect, in turn, says something impure and imperfect
about ourselves.

But I digress, this is not meant as an essay delineating all the touchpoints in
Elvis Presley’s life where the film takes missteps in relation to historical
accuracy, nor is it an exposé on Elvis’ own personal failings. The purpose is to
share a rare instance of when a film delights but also haunts your soul.

And so I return to the question of why this film?

I have always praised Luhrmann’s aesthetic and enjoyed his previous directorial
efforts. Even if I have always found him to favour style at the expense of
substance. Typically, I demand more of the latter in my choice of cinema, and
the films that maintain a lasting impression on me have depth and complexity.
But, to me, this film feels like an outlier in the Luhrmann canon. The
shimmering razzmatazz and elegance of a typical Luhrmann production, of course,
glistens across every frame of his latest venture. But, in Elvis, there is a
lasting poignancy that I cannot suppress, borne out of episodes of unrestrained
catharsis felt during both experiences of witnessing the film on the silver
screen. Catharsis and poignancy have never been terms I associated with the
other three (out five) previous Luhrmann films I have seen. There is no doubt
that Luhrmann’s expertise in screenwriting, visual story-telling, mise-en-scene,
direction, use of music, etc played their part, but something more was at play.

Maybe it was the subject matter itself. I am one who is exceedingly passionate
about music and culture. But music, in particular, is a universe I frequent when
I seek joy, contemplation, comfort, and both solitude and companionship, but
also catharsis: that urge to purge oneself of emotions, both euphoric and
destructive. The title of the film is ‘Elvis’, but it is music that shares
top-billing. The enduring music of the ‘ King of Rock ‘n’ Roll’, and the many
musicians who came before him, whom he revered, and who set him up for global
stardom are gloriously represented throughout the film. There are even some
anachronistic flirtations with contemporary hip-hop and RnB dotted around.

Like few other directors, Luhrmann’s use and treatment of music in film is
precise and immaculate, and can turn any given scene into a sequence of profound
heartache or insatiable euphoria. And I think it is this masterful pairing of
the audio and visual, in Elvis, which has caused me to revisit it.

A heartrending example of profound heartache that can only be delivered through
a flawless pairing of the two arrives late in the Elvis movie. Following the
intense and dramatic scene where he is fired by Elvis onstage while Presley is
performing live at The International Hotel in Las Vegas, Parker, vengefully, has
a bill typed up and delivered to Elvis’ father and business manager – Vernon
Presley – detailing over $8m in personal expenses owed to him beginning from
1955 when he first took on Elvis as a talent. Vernon tells his son that they
will have to take Parker back if they want to avoid bankruptcy.

Initially defiant, due to the betrayal and financial abuse committed by Parker
against him, Elvis, in a later scene, is shown in a state of inconsolable
despair. Dressed, head-to-toe in black, including dark sunglasses, Elvis sits
despondently at the piano in his hotel suite. He taps gently at the keys, while
softly uttering the chorus to ‘Are You Lonesome Tonight?’; a dispiritingly
mournful tone setter for events about to unfold. He picks himself up from the
piano stool – an empty shell body hollowed out by a feeling of hopelessness –
and, with a heartrending tone of utter resignation, asks his father to tell
Colonel Parker he wants to “go back to the way things were”. The dark, heavy
curtains in his suite begin to block out all light and cast a sorrowful pall
over Elvis, slowly shrouding him in an inescapable gloom. He drags himself away
from the piano to sit alone, defeated, and forlorn in his tomb. It’s a
devastating tableau for the audience to endure.

In Elvis, it is when Luhrmann uses Presley’s own songs against him, when he is
at his lowest ebb, during scenes depicting desperate moments in his life – as in
the case above – that the audience, in those short but agonising intervals,
experience a modicum of the torment of a man who has lost control of his own
destiny and his own sense of self.

But there is one extraordinary exception, and it comes at the film’s climax. A
prosthetic and make-up-laden Butler – depicting an Elvis Presley, sweaty and
bloated, fatigued, addicted, and lonely, sat hunched unsteadedly over a piano in
South Dakota, just a few weeks before his death. Waiting until this final moment
in the film to show Elvis in this condition is a stroke of cruel genius. The
audience has not been softened to the spectacle of an unrecognisable and unwell
Elvis, close to his end, as would have been the case had a truer representation
of Elvis’ physical state been shown in previous scenes. And so, with this sudden
change in visual, it hits agonsingly hard.

All the pain and hurt, the loss, betrayal and hopelessness has overwhelmed and
will utlimately undo him. Maybe he is aware, possibly even accepting of his own
mortality. And with that in mind, all that is left is for the King is to erupt
into this towering rendition of ‘Unchained Melody’, bellowing out with such
triumphant pure emotion, as if he truly feels the lyrics he recites. The scene
deftly switches from Butler to footage of the real Elvis during that actual
performance in 1977 in Rapid City, South Dakota.

We are witnessing, at once, a bright, glorious flame slowly extinguishing its
physical form over the course of a three minute and nineteen second swansong,
but with the solace that it is a flame that will continue to burn incandescantly
in the collective consciousness of the world. The man who feared he never
created anything lasting, and that he would be forgotten, continues to be an
icon, eternally redeemed and memorialised through his music and delicate
humanity.

The scene is a tender, heart-rending moment of crystalline beauty, constructed
in a way that perfectly lays the film, and an extraordinary life, to rest.

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment


THE PRESIDENT SPEAKS ON THE TURMOIL IN AFGHANISTAN: UNPICKING BIDEN’S CHARACTER
ASSASSINATION OF THE AFGHAN PEOPLE.

Posted on August 17, 2021 by Au Contraire Voltaire

A few ticks after 21:00 (BST) on 16 August, 2021, and a day after Taliban forces
entered the capital of Kabul, US President Joe Biden stepped into the East Room
of the White House to deliver his speech on the catastrophe that has rapidly
unfolded in Afghanistan in recent weeks.

In reference to the complete withdrawal of US troops from the country, the US
President steadfastly declared: “I stand squarely behind my decision”, while
also acknowledging that the situation in the country had deteriorated far more
quickly, and completely, than anticipated. (A statement that came straight from
the Bureau of the Bleedin’ Obvious!)

Afghan children waiting to be seen by doctors

He then proceeded to blame everyone from his predecessor – Donald Trump – the
Afghan political class, and ordinary Afghans themselves, for the collapse of a
country that was 20 years in the making. Despite his relentless scapegoating,
Biden closed his address on Monday by asserting that: “I am president of the
United States of America, and the buck stops with me.” Those words ring hollow
after the bulk of his speech was littered by a scurrilous and cowardly exercise
in passing that buck.

Below is a detailed analysis of his headline remarks.

The original mission in Afghanistan

Very early in his speech Biden made the claim that US involvement in Afghanistan
was “never supposed to be nation-building”, and that it was above protecting the
United States from terrorism originating from the region.

This claim is flat-out wrong. President George W. Bush, the President who led
the invasion into Afghanistan, asserted in 2002 that: “We know that true peace
will only be achieved when we give the Afghan people the means to achieve their
own aspirations. Peace will be achieved by helping Afghanistan develop its own
stable government.”

Former US President George W Bush addresses 20,000 service personnel and their
families at Marine Corps Base in North Carolina.

Additionally, in his memoir, Decision Points, published in 2010, Bush makes
clear that the objective had always been for the United States to bring about a
rebirth in Afghan politics and society when he declared the country to be “the
ultimate nation building mission”, suggesting that “we [the United States] had a
moral obligation to leave behind something better”.

With his mischaracterisation of The US’s purpose in Afghanistan, Biden is
denying his country’s failure in that purpose: which was to create a safe,
stable and democratic Afghanistan. The US wasted a trillion dollars, and
countless lives, hastily scraping together a weak and corrupt polity. A
20-year-long effort which was obliterated with such devastating ease in a matter
of weeks.

The Afghan political leaders gave up and fled the country

After first declaring that he stood behind his decision to complete the
withdrawal from Afghanistan, President Biden was quick to begin apportioning
blame for the fallout of the rushed withdrawal elsewhere. His first target was
the Afghan government.

On this point, he is somewhat justified in his remarks. Yes – President Ashraf
Ghani, and many other senior politicians, abandoned their country to an
unpleasant fate as soon as the Taliban reached the outskirts of the capital. A
cowardly and deplorable act bereft of any sense of duty and solidarity toward
the people they were charged with governing and protecting. But it was the
chicanery of the previous US administration which doomed the Afghan government
to fail in its basic duty.

President of Afghanistan Ashraf Ghani, who is now understood to be in exile in
Oman.

It is wholly disingenuous for Biden to say the Afghan political leaders, however
ineffectual they were, had given up on their country, when the United States,
under President Trump, had side-lined, and delegitimised, the Afghan civilian
government when it omitted them from Washington’s negotiations with the Taliban.
Former President Trump left the Afghan government with no leverage as he forced
them to accede to almost everything the Taliban asked for. The headline demands
being the release of 5,000 prisoners – including Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar –
who looks set to become the new Taliban ruler of Afghanistan – and the US
commitment to an full, and essentially unconditional, withdrawal from
Afghanistan. Which Trump wanted to do all along.

Trump lauded his own efforts in agreeing to what amounted to a capitulation to
the Taliban by the United States. At least until the current, embarrassing,
situation in Afghanistan unfolded. Republicans have since removed all mention of
the cynical Trump-Taliban deal from the official RNC site. With such a
diplomatic victory handed to them so gleefully by the United States, what
incentive was there left for the Taliban to engage in discussions with the
elected Afghan government? The US rendered Afghanistan’s leaders impotent and
redundant. To make matters worse, Trump began accelerating cuts in US troops
numbers faster than the agreement with the Taliban stipulated, and before the
Taliban had lived up to any of their side of the bargain, proving that there was
no purpose of peace on the American side which further undermined any incentive
for dialogue and a ceasefire between Afghan’s government and the Taliban.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Taliban Co-founder Mullah Abdul Ghani
Baradar meet for talks in Doha, Qatar in February, 2020.

Another critical failure was the inability of Trump’s team to persuade the
Taliban to agree a ceasefire, or even convince them to conduct talks directly
with the Afghan government as part of any official treaty. This despite America
offering their erstwhile enemy everything it asked for. The Taliban, realising
Trump’s desperation to secure a cheap political victory at home by bringing US
troops back without a second thought to the fate of the Afghan people, had no
incentive budge an inch with a political and diplomatic victory already handed
to them by Trump, and the path to a final military takeover laid out for them by
the United States.

A former US Ambassador to Afghanistan, Ryan Crocker, lays the blame for the
current situation in the country at Donald Trump’s door following his efforts to
completely delegitimise the Afghan government and give the Taliban the upper
hand and free rein to reconquer the nation.

Therefore, rather that describing the Afghan leaders as quitters who escaped to
safety, a fairer depiction of reality would be that the US gave up on the Afghan
government, and, by extension, the Afghan nation.

The Afghan people did not want to fight for their own country

After unfairly taking aim at the Afghan government for its failure and voluntary
exile, he then callously stuck a knife into the back of the ordinary Afghan
people themselves. He blamed Afghans for the country’s demise while painting
Afghan security forces as hopeless, responsibility shirkers who were given
everything they needed to defend their country, but refused to step up to the
mark. This is, of course, utter nonsense.

Yes – America spent over $80bn on training and equipping the Afghan army and
police force. But, crucially, and mistakenly, that money was put to work
creating a fighting force modelled on western military organisation and
practices. A vision that was at odds with Afghanistan’s tribal divisions,
wavering loyalties between local leaders and those at the national level, and
the capabilities of ordinary Afghan people, nearly two-thirds of whom remain
illiterate.

New recruits of the 1st Battalion of the Afghan National Army

The bigger issue is corruption, which is rife among the Afghan police and
military leadership. This, understandably, dampened morale. Officers were known
to hide the deaths of their men – known as “ghost soldiers” – in order to pocket
their salaries. As a result, the true size of the Afghan security forces was
massively inflated, and was perhaps only one-sixth of the 300,000 figure
President Biden claimed to exist. The theft of military funds also led many
troops to go unpaid and ill-equipped as aid money was siphoned off by the senior
commanders and the Afghan government. Malnutrition and hunger has also been
reported, with one instance involving a police unit being fed solely on small
rations of ‘slimy’ potatoes.

A further knock on Afghans confidence and will to fight has been the
devastatingly high losses they have endured. Research by Brown University
estimates 69,000 Afghan soldiers and police officers have died since 2001 (with
around 51,000 more civilian deaths). This flies in the face of Biden’s
insensitive contention that the US has borne the brunt of the fighting the past
20 years. US service personnel losses amount to less than 2,500. Compounding the
issue of high casualty numbers, has been widespread grievances against the
Afghan government over non-existent support for troops on the ground, which has
led to Afghan soldiers seeing no alternative but to surrender or desert.

Finally, the US-supported Afghan government was universally loathed by soldiers
and civilians, alike. The governments of Ghani, and his predecessor, Hamid
Karzai, were awash with corruption, arrogance and incompetence. Corruption that
the US tolerated and actively engaged in. Afghan soldiers saw money meant to pay
their salaries, feed their stomachs, and supply them with weapons and equipment,
pilfered by their supposed commanders and political leaders while they were
dying in the desert.

#

US meddling in elections further engendered distrust in Afghanistan’s leaders.
Interference in the 2019 elections also caused a deepening of an already
tempestuous political atmosphere when Ghani’s rival for the Presidency, Abdullah
Abdullah, rejected the elections results, calling them ‘illegitimate’. A label
that many ordinary Afghans had also believed to be true. Both Ghani and Abdullah
declared themselves victor and held opposing inaugurations. US diplomats chose
to attend Ghani’s inauguration and, thus, recognise him as head of state,
despite US special representative, Zalmay Khalilzad, promising not to attend any
ceremony. This show of partisanship by the United States, again, stoked strong
feelings of distrust and accusations of illegitimacy toward the Afghan
government.

The political crisis spilled into 2020 before a power-sharing agreement was
reach in May. Although bickering continued to widen divisions and further
undermine ordinary Afghans trust and confidence in their US-backed government
and US-constructed political system. Trust and confidence was already low,
demonstrated by voter turnout of just 20%.

A young man in the village of Moraqhja holds up his finger to show he has voted.

The sad thing is that Joe Biden, like his predecessors, were aware of all the
above. But yet still , self-interestedly, thought the time was ripe to cut and
run, leaving behind an ill-equipped, demoralised security force, weakened by
endemic corruption and years of heavy casualties to defend against a
well-trained, co-ordinated and emboldened Taliban insurgency. With this backdrop
in mind, it’s understandable that Afghan soldiers resolve would falter and
refuse to continue to fight on behalf of a corrupt government for which they
have no love or loyalty, and for a status quo which has provided them such a
miserable existence. And the US should shoulder much of the blame.

Taliban fighters with their weapons

Who started this whole process?

President Biden stated that the previous Trump administration had begun the
process of withdrawal, and that there was nothing he could do to stop the
withdrawal or proceed with it in a more measured and controlled way.

This claim contains grains of truth cocooned in absurdity. However, it must be
said that it was the sole section of Biden’s blame game which proved persuasive
and was grounded in semblance of facts.

President Biden has been against the war in Afghanistan for well over a decade.
While serving as Vice President under Barack Obama, he argued in favour of a
reduced footprint in Afghanistan. And counselled the President against an
increase of troop numbers in the country. Advice which was ignored when
President Obama decided, in 2009, to send over 30,000 additional service
personnel.

Joe Biden consults with President Obama in the Oval Office during his time as
Vice President. The two were at odds over US policy in Afghanistan.

For a man so opposed to the war and determined to bring troops back home since,
at least, the early days of Obama’s first term in office, the suggestion that he
would have slowed the pace of America’s exist, or reversed Trump’s plans for a
full withdrawal, is disingenuous. Biden, like his predecessor, attached an
arbitrary timeline to the process which did not take stock of the reality of the
situation in the country. That decision has come to haunt him through the images
the world is witnessing on their news broadcasts.

Biden, however, is right that the current trajectory of the withdrawal was
begun, and accelerated, by the previous administration. Trump, in his grubby
deal with the Taliban, agreed to have all US troops out of Afghanistan by May,
2021. Although President Biden did extend that deadline to allow for the
evacuations of Afghans, who supported the coalition powers and who Trump had
forsaken, as well as US citizens – many of whom were working at the embassy in
Kabul.

But Trump had presented Biden with a fait accompli at least politically, when he
brokered that peace deal and begun the withdrawal. A poll by the Chicago Council
Survey, conducted this year, found that 70% of the American population were in
favour of getting US troops out of Afghanistan. Democrat voters were especially
in favour, polling at 77% compared to just 56% of Republicans who agreed with
the withdrawal. To have changed a course already trodden by Trump would have
caused a political migraine for the Biden administration at home.

Former President Trump shaking hands with his Afghan counterpart – Ashraf Ghani
– on a visit to the country in 2019. Trump would later betray the Afghan
government when signing a deal with the Taliban without the input, or consent,
of the elected Afghan government.

There was also the reality of the ‘peace’ deal – really a withdrawal agreement
since one of the parties at war, the Afghan government, was not invited to take
part – signed between Trump and the Taliban. In theory, an agreement with a
violent insurgency intent on overthrowing a democratically-elected government –
however flawed it might be – could have been scorned and ignored by the new US
government. But the Taliban had already become emboldened by the huge
concessions it received so cheaply from Trump. The fact the agreement
materialised in the first place showed that America no longer had the appetite
to prolong its commitment to the country, or attempt to hold back the Taliban
advance with its own military might. This tacit admission served to effectively
hand the keys of power to the resurgent Islamists and reduce the Afghan
government to the status of a lame duck.

Realistically, there was no choice but to press on with the withdrawal.
Arguments can be made for how Biden could have proceeded with an exit strategy
that would have given the Afghan leadership and security forces a chance at
survival. But as has been articulated above, the failures the US’s Afghan policy
saddled the country with a military that was demoralised, depleted and hollowed
out by corruption, fighting for a government reviled by ordinary Afghans. With
such toxic baggage, the situation in the country was irredeemably lost, and
blame resides in the corridors of power in Washington.



Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Afghanistan, America, Ashraf Ghani, Donald
Trump, Joe Biden, President Biden, Taliban, Trump, USA | Leave a comment


GIG REVIEW VAULT: FOURS @ OMEARA, LONDON, 14 SEPT, 2017

Posted on April 18, 2021 by Au Contraire Voltaire

Loyal iHarters will remember FOURS as my pick for ‘Ones To Watch’ from my review
of Bushstock 2017 festival in the summer. Well…BREAKING NEWS! They further
augmented their claim to that accolade following a scintillating performance
Thursday night in South London; bringing the weekend feels to a deliriously
happy crowd, one day early.


Omeara is a delightfully cool and quirky music venue and bar/club positioned a
stone’s throw from trendy Borough Market. The auditorium walls would not look
out of place in the initial levels of the original Tomb Raider game, while
pagan-like sconces, and ceilings projected with neon blue tribal lighting, give
a kind of Crystal Maze aura – somewhere between the Medieval and Futuristic
Zones. It’s a curiously intimate space that, oddly, feels like it would have
been perfect for an illegal Ebeneezer Goode-style 90s rave. 


Singer, Edith Violet, dances onto her stage looking intergalacticly resplendent
in her silvery skirt and matching space boots. It’s immediately clear she loves
nothing better than being on stage and performing to an audience, as she twists
and turns throughout the set, rotating her hips to the uplifting and energetic
rhythm of the bands melodies. The first of which is ‘Fade To Love’: a feelgood
track which sends the crowd immediately into a collective dancing and jiving
spasm. The track has, by far, been their most popular offering to date (almost 3
million listens on Spotify and climbing), and was certainly a summer anthem for
many with its sunshine melody and busting vocals.


The band follows with ‘Headstrong’, another jangly, energetic crowd-pleaser;
even between songs Edith continues to bound around the stage with ever-widening
smile, lost in the moments of artistic performance. ‘Tell Me in the Morning’,
briefly alters the mood with its slow-paced, reflective, and slightly
melancholy, tone. As they introduce their self-described “weird track we play in
the set”, it certainly is conspicuous amongst the rest of their repertoire, but
it’s done to delicate perfection, which displays the extraordinary range both
Edith has as a vocalist, and the band, as a whole, display in their
musicianship. The songs feels very personal experience-y which lends an
ephemeral air of vulnerability to the singer’s onstage presence.

But order is restored, and the brief heavy mood extinguished, as the band step
back into the jangly, feelgood territory that is their staple. The chattering
intro of ‘Overthink’, complimented well by a pulsing flash of red lighting,
although troublesome if there were any epileptics in the house, builds into
another dynamic, rapid melody and a much more throbbing percussive
accompaniment, compared to the earlier tracks in the set, carries the track over
the hip-swaying and lyric-mouthing crowd.


FOURS finish the show with possibly their three most demanding tracks, from a
vocals perspective. The first of the trio, ‘Sickly Sweet’, is one of my
favourites among a catalogue of faves. Imagine, the happiest song you know and
multiply it with pink balloons and ice cream. I could even imagine Kim Jong-Un
dancing to it, albeit with all the grace and panache of the Tin Man with a
hernia.’Stella’ is another quick-moving track, that must take some excellent
breathing control to perform as faultlessly as Edith does. Her vocal prowess
really is the shiny bow that wraps together the entire package. It’s as much a
joy to watch the lyrics effortlessly trip off the tongue as it is to hear such.
gorgeousness. 

The band finish with ‘Painful to Watch’, which is another tough vocal assault
with its chippy melody and long, lingering notes, but Edith doesn’t miss a beat
as the crowd cut completely loose to a track that could be a number 1 on
anybody’s chart. As the band exit the stage to a rapturous applause, I walk away
with only one disappointment: the didn’t play ‘Stranger’. For a band that has
only released one EP, thus far, they are creating quite a following and continue
to impress with new material and pulsating live performances. For now, they
remain my ‘Ones to Watch’ for the coming year. 

Setlist


Fade Into Love

Headstrong

Damage

Tell Me In The Morning

Overthink

Crisis

Sickly Sweet

Stella

Painful To Watch

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GIG REVIEW VAULT: BILLIE EILISH @ THE COURTYARD, LONDON 10 JULY, 2017

Posted on April 8, 2021 by Au Contraire Voltaire

To call Billie O’Connell – known by her stage name: Billie Eilish – a wondrously
precocious talent, would be a gross understatement. She had already started
making a name for herself at the tender age of 13 (absolutely ridic, right?) and
has continued to impress audiences, and industry folk, since 2015, securing a
record deal with Interscope with a debut album expected sometime this year. 


Therefore, as I make my way to tonight’s gig, I am consumed with a curiosity and
excitement to see how such a young artist holds herself on stage while still
cultivating her sound in an industry that can be so rapacious and fraught with
pitfalls and challenges to which many level-headed and mature artists
have succumbed. I needn’t have worried. As I step inside ‘The Courtyard’ in
Hoxton, East London: a dark boxed in basement venue with a old 90s rave scene
kind of character, it’s a jam-packed house. The place is so hot and sweaty I
feel like I have crawled ankle deep inside the devil’s arse hole. But you
quickly forget you are becoming a human puddle when the delicate and
sweet-sounding siren tones of Billie permeate your ear drums; this, now
15-year-old, LA girl with tousled blonde hair demonstrates a stage presence
that, together with her hypnotic vocals, transfixes your gaze and empties your
mind of anything that sits outside this present experience. 


What follows is something akin to a revelation: we are witnesses to a monumental
talent – in her nascent stages – who, at such a young age, can already speak for
our rawest emotions and rouse our souls into a delicate and
vulnerable catharsis. At no point is this more evident than when Eilish scales
partway up a step ladder – which had, to that point, been looking rather
incongruent on the stage, takes a seat and delivers an achingly beautiful
rendition of ‘Bored’ (fans of ‘Thirteen Reasons Why’ will be familiar with this
track), just one of many songs containing lyrics that belie her true age.

‘Bellyache’, a song, seemingly about the murder, insanity and remorse, but for
the wrong reasons, is an astounding accomplishment for a teenager. It has a
simple, slightly morose, guitar melody, but the genius comes in the dark
andmacabre lyrics: “Where’s my mind, Maybe it’s in the gutter where I left my
love, What an expensive fate”. Let’s just rubber stamp that with a “Wow!” Eilish
has certainly placed a Grand Canyon between herself and the bubblegum/all things
nice and sickly sweet that is the staple of many uninspiring young artists.


As she sits resolutely on that step, and continuing throughout the set, she is
innocently narrating the lives of her audience through song. Tales of overcoming
pain, unrequited love, past mistakes and “breaking up with someone in a really
shitty way” – as Billie chooses to introduce one of her tracks – are all tales
we share and which Billie draws upon,projecting impassioned vocals with a
introspective grace and elegance, crafted alongside sleek, measured, sometimes
funky, melodies.


The closing of the set could not better demonstrate this alluring, yet
unnerving, power that Eilish has captured with her clever and sometimes
darkly-lit songwriting. As an ethereal and minimalist intro breaks, the crowd
roars in gleeful approvalbefore a deep bass hits, and the crowd, without need
for encouragement, explode int a loud and giddy chorus of “I’ve been watching
you for some time can’t stop staring at those ocean eyes…”. Eilish dazzles her
audience as she retakes the reins,before the singalong rejoins her to finish the
track, and the set, with rapturous applause and howls of appreciation.


A new pop superstar is soon to beguile and elevate the hearts of the masses, and
we were all witnesses at what felt like hermusical baptism.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged billie eilish, gig, Live Music, London, Music |
Leave a comment


BORN TO PERFORM! THE ARTISTS WITH VISION, SWAGGER, AND ATTITUDE: BILLY IDOL

Posted on January 10, 2021 by Au Contraire Voltaire

The songs of William Michael Albert Broad, known by his stage name Billy Idol,
have been a staple of my karaoke repertoire for some time. What can be more
cathartic, and exhilirating, than catapulting the familiar refrain “more, more,
more”, from Idol’s 1983 hit ‘Rebel Yell’ from your voicebox with an animalistic
howl? The act, and the pleasure borne out of it, is both unavoidable, and
emblematic of the sizzling magnetism that emanated, irresistably, from the man
who made the song famous.

Carried on the wave of the 1980s MTV revolution, Billy Idol was one of the most
successful, popular and charismatic artists of that decade. His signature
lip-curled sneer, bleached blonde hair and supercharged, glammed up music videos
– cheesy even by the standards of the ’80s – were characteristic of his synth
punk, overtly sexual persona. He rose to be at the pinnacle of the
much-publicised ‘second British invasion’, propelled, again, by MTV and its
emphasis on the visual representations of artists, bands and their music.
Fortunately, for the time, Idol’s aesthetic captured the imagination of era’s
youth, with gusto, and helped more than 40 million records shoot out of record
store over the course of his career.

But he was more than just a ‘look’. Idol’s career was an entire exhibition;
inspired by an, initially, raw, but transfixing, musical energy, onstage
hedonsitic zeal, trans-Atlantic cultural underpinnings, and lustful carnality.

Born in Stanmore, UK, on 30 Novemeber 1955 – while also spending time moving
back and forth to the United States in his early years – the young Billy
developed a penchant for the strident and rebellious force of punk rock, which
was to become the unifying concept behind his sound and image. He dropped out of
university after seeing the Sex Pistols in London. During a recent interview
with Rolling Stone, Idol explained what hearing ‘Anarchy in the UK’ live felt
like back in 1976:

“they brought in ‘Anarchy in the U.K.’ And I mean, when you heard that, it was
just like, ‘This is the anthem of our times!’ We just sort of believed in what
we were seeing, really. I had an innate belief that this was what our generation
had to do.”

And what Idol did was mesmerise his, and future, generations with his particular
musical concoction: melding punk rock, with synth and new wave sounds – which
came to predominate the airwaves of the ’80s – with frenzied, and devastatingly
catchy, effect.

Idol at ‘Peace and Love Festival’, 2012

As for the name that went with the music, Billy Idol came into being due to a
schoolteacher’s description of the young Billy as ‘idle‘. Referencing the
provenance of his stage moniker, in an interview on 21 November 1983, Idol said
the name “Billy Idol” “was a bit of a goof, but part of the old English school
of rock. It was a ‘double thing’ not just a poke at the superstar-like people …
It was fun, you know?” The young Idol had a brief sojourn with the retro-1960s
band Chelsea before qutting the band, along with the group’s guitarist, to found
the band Generation X; one of the first punk bands to feature on Britain’s music
programme Top of the Pops. One of they’re biggest smashes, which has stuck to
Billy throughout his 44-year career, was the bouncy Dancing with Myself . The
group disbanded after three albums and, in 1981, Billy moved to New York to
continue is music odyssey as a solo artist.

Idol found the perfect support team and collaborator in the form of former Kiss
manager Bill Aucoin and guitarist, Steve Stevens, who complimented Idol’s
desired glam/punk/synch style he was cultivating. By the time of his second LP,
1983’s ‘Rebel Yell’, Idol was a household name in America, as well as Europe.


Billy Idol – Rebel Yell musicl video

But what made Idol stand out from his contemporaries, who, in the 1980s, all had
their own visually alluring schtick, was his panache as a live performer.
Decorated in cone-studded leather and distressed jeans, Billy Idol exploded on
the stage like a possessed pogo stick. He continues to bring his rebellious yell
as a performer to this day. The Idol back catalogue is replete with a brilliant
artistic fusion of similar, but disparate, musical styles of which the elements
he utilises lend themselves, perfectly, to the tremendous stage frolics and
energy which are scintillatingly embodied by Idol.

Posted in Music | Tagged billy idol, generation x, Music, new wave, Punk, punk
rock, rebel yell, rock, white wedding | Leave a comment


BILLY JOEL ‘WE DIDN’T START THE FIRE’ CORONAVIRUS PARODY

Posted on March 13, 2020 by Au Contraire Voltaire

Did a full like for like Billy Joel parody.
This is how I choose to spend my sports-deprived life now.

“Bernie Sanders, Garth Brooks, Paper Masks, Dirty Looks
Southern Europe, Crisis Looming, No Pistachios

Tom Hanks, Trudeau’s Wife, Hong Kong Civil Strife
Boris Johnson, Carrie Symonds, Bun in the Oven

Alex Jones, Gay Bomb, DUI, Licence Gone
Top Gun Jets in the Sky & James Bond “No Time To Die”

Covid-19, Vaccine, England’s Got the Same Queen
Tyson Fury, Wins The Fight, Karaoke, Goodnight

We didn’t start the virus
It was always swirling
Since the world’s been burning
We didn’t start the virus
No we didn’t light it
But we’re trying to fight it

Rita Wilson, Brad Pitt, Sneezing & a Coughing Fit
Warren Buffett, Jeffrey Bezos, Communist Plot

Mike Pence, CDC, Toilet Paper, Aisle 3
Oprah Winfrey Trips & Falls, “Hold Me While You Wait”

Weinstein, Sentencing, Houston’s Got a Cheating Team
Czech Republic, Travel Ban, Started in the Wuhan

Bloomberg, Suffers Rout, Sanitizer, Sold Out
Joe Biden, Threatenin’ Voters Up In Michigan

We didn’t start the virus
It was always swirling
Since the world’s been burning
We didn’t start the virus
No we didn’t light it
But we’re trying to fight it

Donald Trump, On the Attack, Gordon Sondland, Gets the Sack
Airlines, Going Bust, Global Markets Can’t Adjust

NBA, MLB, Seasons Are in Jeopardy
Mainstream, Media, Causing Mass Hysteria

Billie Eilish, “Parasite”, White Cops, Shoot on Sight
Simpsons, Told Us So, In Episodes Long Ago

Tories, Probably, Blame it on the BBC
Guiliani, Butt Dial, Haven’t Seen Him in a While

We didn’t start the virus
It was always swirling
Since the world’s been burning
We didn’t start the virus
No we didn’t light it
But we’re trying to fight it

Liverpool, Nice Try, Title Hopes Sure To Die
Schools Shut, Lockdown, Cases in the Next Town

Supermarket Panic Buy, People Scared of Stir Fry
Handshakes, Cost Lives, Rudy Gobert Ostracised

Ted Cruz, Quarantine, Keep Him There Til Halloween
USA Not OK, What Else Do I Have To Say?

We didn’t start the virus
It was always swirling
Since the world’s been burning
We didn’t start the virus
No we didn’t light it
But we’re trying to fight it

Coronavirus Outbreak, A Clay Travis Hot Take
Wall Street, Share Price, Drops Fast, City Vice
Boris Johnson, M.I.A, Britain Is In Disarray
Sale of Tissues On the Rise, Las Vegas Has A Franchise

No Hugs, Shakes, Or Touching Lips, Sheldon Cooper Hygiene Tips
Drinking Bleach, Snorting Blow, Won’t Make the Virus Go
Middle Eastern Dirty Wars, Donald Trump Still Breaks The Law
All Sport Seasons Out the Door, I Can’t Take it Anymore

We didn’t start the virus
It was always swirling
Since the world’s been burning
We didn’t start the virus
………And so forth

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged America, Billy Joel, Boris Johnson, Britain,
China, comedy, coronavirus, coronavirus pandemic, covid-19, covid19, disease,
Donald Trump, epidemic, humor, humour, italy, lockdown, Outbreak, pandemic,
Parody, satire, song, Ted Cruz, Tom Hanks, Trump, UK, USA, we didn't start the
fire, weinstein, wuhan | Leave a comment


ALBUM REVIEW: MOLLY BURCH – ‘PLEASE BE MINE’

Posted on May 18, 2018 by Au Contraire Voltaire

The Austin, Texas-based Molly Burch delivers 10 delicately-crafted indie rock
gems with her debut album: ‘Please Be Mine’. The record is replete with wistful
lyricism and retro melodies which are reminiscent of the 1960s girl groups, such
as The Shirelles, but it is also infused with a soupcon of Hope
Sandoval-inspired shoegaze, this component being particularly manifest in
Burch’s vocal style which betrays a hint of the Mazzy Star frontwoman’s hypnotic
tones, except Burch’s delivery has more punch behind it.

Burch has drawn comparisons to compatriot Angel Olsen; the connection is apt as
Burch, like Olsen, is another brilliant female artist who tantalisingly needles
at the melancholy and forlorn in her songwriting. Even Burch’s voice holds
similarities in the country music-style inflections and pitch changes she
employs in her remarkable vocal range. But it is with Burch, and ‘Please Be
Mine’, that I really feel that retro influence.

The influence of 1960s soul, R n B & Doo Wop is evident throughout the record.
Tracks like ‘Please Forgive Me’ have a melody that immediately has me imagining
The Ronettes or, for balance, The Temptations clicking their fingers to the
rhythm, while swaying gently from side to side in a satisfying wave-like unison.
The effect is that the entire record transports one through an incredibly
pleasing sojourn to a desert island of introspection. Once ‘Loneliest Heart’
Kicks in you already have a sangria in hand and you’re swinging in a hammock
while mouthing the words with your eyes closed. You can’t help but relax and
feel nostalgic, but nostalgic for what, you never quite discover.

Burch occasionally dips a toe into the Dusty Springfield vocal pond – you know?
The more pensive and sorrowful numbers in legend’s repertoire. The album is
sandwiched between two perfect examples as both ‘Downhearted’ and ‘I Love You
Still’ emulate the soulful panache of ‘The White Queen of Soul’, but instead
accompanied with resonant electric guitar.

The title track, I think, is diamond in the crown of this sensational debut
record. ‘Please Be Mine’ has a writhing and forlorn melody, verging on the
torturous when Burch’s disconsolate vocals burst open with all the emotion of a
crestfallen and unrequited love. It is a 5 minute piece of crystalline beauty
from beginning to end and flawlessly prefaces the final track, the agonising ‘ I
Love You Still’, leaving the listener in the final throes of catharsis, begging
for part two of the lovers’ saga.



 

— Daniel Adshead —

 

 

 

 

Posted in Music, Uncategorized | Tagged album, debut album, Indie, indie rock,
molly burch, Music, please be mine, record, review, rock | Leave a comment


VINCE STAPLES: THE RAP ARTIST WHO CAN SUBVERT & DOMINATE THE GENRE WITH CLEVER &
INNOVATIVE FRESHNESS

Posted on February 27, 2018 by Au Contraire Voltaire

Vince Staples’ existence within the milieu of West Coast rappers – born in
California, raised in North Long Beach, CA – is an act of rebellious
dissatisfaction with the state of rap music and its current crop of haughty,
self-aggrandising purveyors. Staples has been open about his previous ties with
LA gang culture, but confesses to never having never sipped a drop of alcohol,
nor dabbling in illegal drugs. Now, he has since successfully extricated himself
from the negative gang links, and is actively involved in speaking with the
youth of South California on the dangers of succumbing to the gang lifestyle.
This all runs counter to the rapper attitude that currently pervades the music
landscape. Although rap has become less about glorifying oneself in the violent
excesses that come with being a gangbanger, it still inflicts upon itself an
odious scent of rap artist self-hype that seems to inform a lot of the lyrics.
For example, Drake tells us in ‘Light Up’:

I’ve been up for 4 days
Getting money both ways
Dirty and clean, I could use a glass of cold Spades
Rolexes, chauffeurs and low fades

While Migos, humble as ever, in ‘Spray the Champagne’ want to remind everyone
they be:

“Sprayin’ the Champagne on the sofa fuckin’ up the couch with Louboutin loafers
25 hundred nigga I put in the sole
Young nigga we got the crown and my neck looks just golden”

Both examples show a vapid preoccupation with vaunting their wealth while also
constructing a sickly and outdated machismo image, rather than using their
talent for more profound, and less superficial, self-expression. Rap artists are
a fascinating cohort within music, not just in terms of their life experience,
but their route into the industry is often more prolonged and seemingly
impenetrable even by normal industry standards. Therefore, you would think that
when the opportunity comes, they would have subject matter and concerns that are
more visceral, and deeply-rooted to their own experiences, to jot down on scraps
of paper and the backs of envelopes, rather than the size of their back balance
(and, unconsciously, their cocks) and how much respect should be bestowed on
them from their fans and peers. This idea around rap artists and perception is
something Staples has, more empathetically, engaged with, stating in an
interview with the New York Times:

‘If a rapper could drive a Toyota without getting clowned, then they would do
it. It’s more about the perception: You have to be larger than life, you can’t
be a regular person. They’re doing what they have to do to get heard and
appreciated and not made a mockery of.’

Vince Staples, and a select few of his contemporaries, has endeavoured to fill
the ‘serious rapper’ void in urban music. On his debut album, Summertime ’06,
released in June 2015, 2 days before his 22nd birthday, Pitchfork detailed how
Staples expresses ‘complex ideas’ in a ‘conversational’ rapping style,
punctuated by ‘plain, hard sentences’. The record is a preservation of the
old-school West Coast gangsta rap and listens like 20 vignettes on life in North
Long Beach: exploring such varied themes as racial profiling (‘Lift Me Up‘), sex
(‘Lemme Know’), teenage angst-driven nihilism (‘Jump Off The Roof‘), while, in
the track ‘Surf’, Staples pierces our gaze, with a relentless calm, as he
soberly revisits the daily carnage that torments those neighbourhoods afflicted
with the threatening concoction of guns, drug abuse and poverty. In brutal
fashion, and in just one verse, Staples laments:

“More black kids killed from a pill than the FEDs in the projects
In the planned parenthood playin’ God with ya mom’s check, you ain’t even been
to prom yet
Sixteen, heard you wanna be a star girl
What he charge for the dream? Getcha ball girl
What’s the price for a life in this dark world?
Couple hundred where I come from, how you sleep when the sun down?
I ain’t really tryna judge, they be lookin’ for somebody you can love
He was lookin’ for somebody he could fuck
Took ya body, wouldn’t bother with you none
Spoiled rotten in the bottom of the slums
Caught up in the fun”.

You don’t get such jarring assessment of inner-city living in Southern
California, from the likes of Migos and L’il Wayne. This bleak narrative comes
from a lost hope, for many black Americans, in what an Obama presidency had
promised would be positive change for poor, black neighbourhoods.



Vince Staples performing on March 5, 2019 during ‘Smile You’re On Camera’ tour

Not content with simply reframing the what the purpose and focal point of rap
lyricism should be – if it even still existed before he exploded onto the scene,
Staples is also plugging the huge chasm when it comes melodic composition. With
Particular attention on his second album, Big Fish Theory, (released in 2017),
Vince eschews the monotonous templates of beats and melodies that plenty of rap
artists re-use over and over, and instead demonstrates an innovative flair and
unique vision when experimenting with this much-neglected aspect of the wider
mechanism of rap music recording. Historically, lyrics have always been of prime
importance within rap, and they should be, but that should not subjugate the
melody so much so that the words are laid over the same lazy, hackneyed beat
sequences. Staples recognised this early in his career, understanding that a
track with a carefully cultivated sound can often augment the musical whole and
deliver an urgency and intensity of poetic messaging to the listener.

This sophistication in the marriage of sound and rap language has been
exemplified in Big Fish Theory, which incorporates avant-garde, dance and
electronic influences that sit alongside Staples’ philosopher/provocateur rap
lyricism. (Listen to ‘Love Can Be…’ or ‘BagBak‘). On this record, Staples stairs
into the fishbowl of the rap ecosystem, exploring, as Staples himself puts it:
“how rappers are perceived and perceive themselves”, which harks back to my
opening musings at the beginning of this article. Staples manages to unburden
himself on this record in quickfire proclamation tracks lasting, on average,
only 3 minutes. The secret is tempo, and Staples mutates from his previous
tranquillity on prior records, to an artist exuding a manic energy. It’s a very
bold and unorthodox rap album. It’s Vince Staples’ boldness and unconventional
style that the rap world needs to embrace, and encourage, in order realise its
full potential and purpose, and escape the insipid perception it communicates to
a global music audience.

— Daniel Adshead —


Posted in America, Black Lives matter, black panther, Music, Rap, rap music,
Uncategorized | Tagged album, America, big fish theory, california, drake,
gangsta rap, gangster rap, long beach, Music, Rap, rap album, rap music, review,
vince staples, west coast rap | Leave a comment


ALBUM REVIEW: THE BIG MOON – LOVE IN THE 4TH DIMENSION

Posted on May 9, 2017 by Au Contraire Voltaire

The Big Moon – an all-female awesome foursome from London – have released their
debut offering ‘ Love in the 4th Dimension’ during a stimulating, almost
paradigm-shifting, though nascent era of guitar music. They are taking their
place in the exciting firmament where fellow guitar rock revolutionaries, like
Honeyblood, Blaenavon and Black Honey, are also occupying a prime position.
‘Love in the 4th Dimension’ is the latest brilliant example of stripped back,
unpretentious Indie rock being ushered in with the objective of erasing a
lacklustre division of rock music which has tried, and miserably failed to
subvert the chart dominance of the R&B and ‘Urban’ music outputs, over the
course of the past decade. This section of Indie rock tried too be clever:
combining genres, on the one-hand, conditioned by artistic intelligence, and
unorthodox chord progressions, and on the other, a post-punk revivalism which,
bizarrely, became besotted with awkward keyboard instrumentation and
excruciating synth pop – which has tragically enjoyed a resurgence about as
welcome as a giant Donald Trump covered with spiders.

This album, and the band themselves, reach us mere listeners on a nostalgic
level. It’s hard to escape comparisons with Indie’s bygone 90s golden era, when
so much of the rock magic of Britpop, 90s American Indie, and their immediate
aftermath, is drawn upon by the band and deftly reconfigured to produce a sound
that is their own. Elastica, Mansun, Sleeper, Pavement, they’re all in this
album, but the individuality of The Big Moon is powerful enough to contort these
influences to make them almost unrecognisable, as they turn the Britpop-inspired
rock t-shirt inside-out and back through its own grunge, shoegaze, punk
beginnings.

The opening track – ‘Sucker’ – is a testament to the stripped back, inside-out
90s Indie that the band aim to capture. A slow, fabulously dirty guitar intro
that rises and declines in volume and tempo, in a more understated take on
the Pixies-cum-Nirvana formula. Juliette Jackson’s vocals have the mellow,
“don’t give a fuck” kind of cool attitude that Justine Frischmann teased from
her lips back during Elastica’s heyday, and the backing vocals and occasional
harmonies are reminiscent of a Banarama pop hit.

The weaknesses in the album are virtually non-existent, but if I was to offer
any negative it would be in some of the transitions from strong verse
composition to a slightly weak chorus which depletes the overall track:
‘Formidable’ is one such example, but even ‘OK Computer’ had ‘The Tourist’, no
band is perfect. If any track from ‘Love in the 4th Dimension’ best heralds in
an exciting future for guitar rock, it’s ‘Bonfire’, a standout track that pays
homage to punk energy, grunge despondency and Britpop cockiness with faultless
effect.

Stay tuned into these rock empresses, they may be the standard-bearers for Indie
rock’s recapturing of the airwaves.

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment


ROXANNE DE BASTION @ THE ROUNDHOUSE, LONDON – 3 MAY, 2017

Posted on May 5, 2017 by Au Contraire Voltaire

A hush surmounts the murmuring of an audience waiting in eager anticipation as
Roxanne de Bastion skips onto the stage with a beaming ray of sunshine spread
across her face in the guise of a sweetly innocent smile. You can tell she has
been itching to kick off her album launch tour for her debut LP – ‘Heirlooms and
Hearsay’ – as much as we have been twisted in excitement to see her perform. The
cosy and hauntingly intimate confines of the Sackler Space within the famous
Camden venue is the optimum singer-songwriter gig territory: and, tonight, a
space where Roxanne is to begin softly commanding every square inch with her
epic lullaby to family history, home and relationships. But first, as a prelude,
she opens on stage, solo, with the fan-favour ‘Red and White Blood Cells’. The
up-tempo strumming has everyone gently bobbing their feet and heads. We
obligingly participate in the chorus backing without needing any encouragement,
although Roxanne’s heavenly grin is altogether inviting.

After thanking the crowd, she invites her fellow touring band members onto the
stage, although I don’t remember seeing them emerge onstage as it is hard not to
be transfixed by the folk singer’s giddy schoolgirl enthusiasm. I am also
strangely, in love with her knee-length t-shirt. One, I believe, designed by
herself: all black with a white cartoon graphic image of herself on the front. I
kind of want one, as it is refreshingly understated from most band or artist
apparel which I normally eschew for its gaudiness. I hope it becomes merchandise
in the future, but I digress – I warned it was hard not to be intoxicated by her
presence on stage.

The Berlin native, and her band, take a different tack to the normal album promo
tour as they populate the setlist with the occasional non-album track.
‘Somewhere Upon Avon’, for example, is a track that reminisces over Stratford
Upon Avon, where her grandfather resided after fleeing Communist Hungary,
following the Second World War, and the birthplace of her father. Like the
tracks that reached the album, it is an organic offering, resplendent in
beautiful simplicity with uncomplicated lyrics of candid sentiment and
sincerity. ‘Some Kind of Creature’ is another rogue on the setlist. Its tone
deftly straddles the line between upbeat and contemplative, which makes it a
standout track of the gig and one that is particularly well-received by the
audience.

A thematic coalescence develops as Roxanne plays tracks from ‘Heirlooms and
Hearsay’, so that they become distinct from those occasional non-album treats.
Many of the songs from her debut record appear to be elegies to her late
grandfather – ‘Run’ being especially moving, the emotion and atmosphere that
envelops its performance being augmented by the backstory that Roxanne prefixes,
and the solitary tear that glides down her cheek as she tells it. Many of her
songs, as the evening trots gracefully along, are accompanied by
equally personal revelations. The songs from the album
explore familial relationships, family history and touch upon the many places de
Bastion calls home. On the latter subject, particular attention is given to her
native Berlin, of which ‘Wasteland’ – a lamentation of the destruction of the
East Side Gallery portion of the Berlin Wall – seems the most frankly heartfelt
and soothing in its delicacy.

Each song, and the way in which de Bastion elegantly performs them, reveal an
innocence, akin to a child’s poem, but with the depth and tenderness that can
only be conveyed through a life lived and feelings truly felt. Roxanne is
delightfully charming and funny throughout the performance; wonderfully engaging
with her audience while also replete with anecdotes and amusing tour tales.
You’d be forgiven for feeling as if you were alone and on a first date, standing
with a glass of wine captivated by a beautiful woman’s captivating persona and
fascinating life story.

The set comes to an end with a genuine wail of disappointment from the audience,
and de Bastion herself, at how quickly the evening has passed. But we are
rewarded for our devotion with an unscheduled encore, but I sense the reward is
mutual as, I believe, Roxanne is reluctant to exit the stage as she appears to
be enjoying herself so enormously, the smile still painted on her face. She
invites requests, but eventually settles on an impromptu acoustic version of
Outkast’s ‘Hey Ya!’ Her rendition lends a solemn aura to the original, the
lyrics seem clearer and more profound when spoken from her lips to the gentle
and soft strumming of her guitar. The crowd join in at the chorus, projecting a
still but haunting howl of ‘Heeeeey Yaaaa’, almost like a Pagan incantation.
It’s a perfect end to what has been a seductively intimate night of live music.
Roxanne now embarks on the rest of her UK album tour, but I can’t help feeling
there was something uniquely special, and unable to be replicated, that occurred
tonight.

 

—Daniel Adshead—

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