Just wanted to share this amazing performance:
There are lots of other brilliant videos by watchlistentell on the youtube, not all of which have distinct similarities to the Burberry Acoustic series which I also loved.
Music
15 April 2013
10 April 2013
17 November 2012
Antibalas
A nice mid-week gig outing to the Islington Assembly Hall, dancing to a bit of Afrobeat.
A great support band, the Ariya Astrobeat Arkestra, did a perfect job as a support act - they were exciting enough to warm the growing crowd up, proving themselves to a new audience as a band to look out for in their own headline spots in future, but they still left enough out of their performance to be completely blown out of the water by the incredible Antibalas.
I'd never got fully into Antibalas before, I've been listening to them for a few years but not really got past looking them up on spotify when the mood suggested. I now understand them to be the lynchpins of everything that's awesome emerging from the New York area. If you loved the current David Byrne / St Vincent album, you may already recognise some of the horn sounds, and if you have recently opened up Back to Black you may have also been listening to some Antibalas stars. Chuck in TV on The Radio, Easy Star All-Stars and countless others and you start to get an audio picture of what might happen if you put all these people together.
When everything comes together like that, it's this inspiring, visceral feeling that I can't really describe. It's like a perfect typographic layout, or an awesome CSS code, a spoonful of honey, but you get to dance and scream to it. Which I did.
It was a bit of a shame the venue isn't really suited to the sound, a lot of the vocal impact was projected up into the cavernous ceiling space and didn't always connect, but sheer energy came through in bucketloads. I recommend getting along to see them if you can. I imagine the Melkweg show in Amsterdam will have been perfect. I love that venue.
One thing that niggled me a bit at the time and I can't decide about; they played two Fela songs at the end of the show. People have always done tributes to great musicians who have inspired them, but I feel a bit uncomfortable about the way any afrobeat band I've seen has so blatantly referenced the great man. I can't really think of another genre that's been so completely defined by one person, and I think it's a bit of a dis-service to the creativity that continues in bands like Antibalas, Ariya, London Afrobeat Collective. These groups are taking the inspiring sounds of the 70s and pushing them forward with new layers of tonality, new beats, new styles. I'm not saying they're better or that I enjoy the current bands more (although sometimes...), but I kind of feel like they pull themselves back when they bring up the past. I don't understand.
12 September 2012
Society by Eddie Vedder
It's a mystery to me
We have a greed with which we have agreed
You think you have to want more than you need
Until you have it all you won't be free
Society, you're a crazy breed
I hope you're not lonely without me
When you want more than you have
You think you need
And when you think more than you want
Your thoughts begin to bleed
I think I need to find a bigger place
'Cause when you have more than you think
You need more space
Society, you're a crazy breed
I hope you're not lonely without me
Society, crazy and deep
I hope you're not lonely without me
There's those thinking more or less, less is more
But if less is more how you're keeping score?
Means for every point you make your level drops
Kinda like it's starting from the top, you can't do that
Society, you're a crazy breed
I hope you're not lonely without me
Society, crazy and deep
I hope you're not lonely without me
Society, have mercy on me
I hope you're not angry if I disagree
Society, crazy and deep
I hope you're not lonely without me
21 July 2012
12 July 2012
13 May 2012
07 January 2012
13 December 2011
The show must go on an app
This is interesting - the Royal Opera House have commissioned Hide&Seek studio to create a new app thing which has turned out to be a fun iPhone game.
It acts as a new digital revenue stream and potential audience-grower for the institution, which is doubtless dealing with all kinds of cuts and strains like the rest of the UK public culture sector.
Apart from being fiendishly hard, it's a really fun and surprisingly engaging way to explore behind the scenes of an opera production, and the payoffs from working through the levels can be quite funny, especially if you're as bad as me.
I'll be really interested to see if this does help ROH financially - the app is reasonably pricey, but I imagine their brake-even point will still require quite a few sales - but I'm even more interested to see what its effect on audiences and young career starters is.
Many years ago in biology class I almost decided I wanted to be an ecologist when I grew up, because of a fun worksheet we had to do where we had to find the best place to re-house some newts. We had to think about water flow, tree cover, sewage, other predators, all kinds of things. As a 13 year-old that was just about the level of encouragement I needed to plan my future. I wonder if moving sets around and working lighting rigs in The Show Must Go On will inspire more young people to get involved behind and in front of the stage, even if it is only 3.5 inches wide for the time being.
15 October 2011
Still pushing on, Aspire to Enquire is my space to write about the inspiring ideas and artefacts I find from time to time.
What is inspiring to me? I like ideas that can bring people together for common good, I like to see things communicated with beauty, and I thrive on finding innovative ways to spread messages.
