Blog — Page 244 of 281

On January 21 I saw Bash & Pop with the So So Glos at the Great Scott in Boston, MA, a small-bar venue with a sound system that’s just shitty enough to be charming. I’d seen the So So Glos before and loved them - they’re a fun, snarky NYC punk band, and I talked about them in a previous concert review here. They’re probably about 68% of the reason why I went to this show.

Bash & Pop had their own unique draw for me, though. This was Tommy Stinson’s band - Tommy Stinson of Replacements fame. The Replacements were before my time - they broke up just a month before I was born - and Stinson’s Bash & Pop formed in 1992 and broke up in 1994 - just before I could have a memory. Nonetheless, over the years I’ve become a big Replacements fan, especially after reading the Replacements biography Trouble Boys by Bob Mehr. They were known for absolutely awesome and absolutely awful live shows, depending on how much they had to drink that night. Either way, these live shows were supposedly legendary, but for me they were only legends.

Thus, when I heard that Bash & Pop was coming back in 2016 - with a totally new lineup, but with Stinson still at the helm - I had to see them live, even if the now 50-year-old Stinson was just a shadow of those legendary shows. At 25 I was by far the youngest one there (these were all Replacements fans, after all), but minutes after I got there, a big hairy man in a black leather jacket complimented me on my Titus Andronicus hoodie.

I had never seen the Great Scott that crowded - the show was sold out, and I had to accept that I was going to be gently pressed up against drunk dads for the rest of the night. The So So Glos were great as always, but I think I was the only one who knew the lyrics. Midway through the show, I watched two old men start to tell each other off (“What the fuck you say??”) with one of the guy’s girlfriends saying, “Ugh, Jake, can you please take this outside?” I didn’t see them for the rest of the show after that. In many ways, seeing two old men fighting before the show even started was the exact thing I signed up for when I bought this Bash & Pop ticket.

Tommy Stinson and his band in matching brown suits didn’t take the stage until 11pm, and I think I was the only one in the room yawning. I felt really young and really old at the same time.

For the first half of the show, the band was only okay, which was about what I expected. Their 1993 album Friday Night Is Killing Me is a pretty middle-of-the-road rock side project, and it’s pretty impressive that their 2016 album Anything Could Happen sounds like it could have been Disc 2 of Friday Night Is Killing Me. They played all their songs straight, to the point that you could close your eyes and think you were hearing the studio recording, which for me is not a compliment.

Then Stinson said, “You know...A whiskey on the rocks would be really nice right now. Realll nice.” Within minutes, Stinson had four glasses of whiskey at his feet. Drinking those whiskeys the rest of the night, the band suddenly sounded incredible. They got louder, they started jamming, and I actually believed what Stinson was singing. Stinson was suddenly hilarious and charming: In between a song he said with a whiskey in his hand, “Tomorrow my daughter and I are celebrating her birthday in New York. We’re going bowling!” Meanwhile, a mom standing next to me got completely shitfaced and yelled “I LOVE YOU!!!”

It was a beautiful moment where good ol’ rock n roll lived on - but probably so did 50-year-old Stinson’s alcoholism - and it was a moment where I definitely did not belong. Stinson refused to play any Replacements songs, but nonetheless I’m sure everyone around me had a chance to go back in time, while I could only see the afterglow of an aging punk whose flame dwindled on.

Aurora
Metro Theatre
Sydney, AUS
January 25, 2017

There is something magical and otherworldly about the young Norwegian lady that goes by the name of Aurora Aksnes, known mononymously as Aurora.

Angelic, unpretentious and innocent on one hand, yet immensely charismatic, completely at ease with her own artistry and effortlessly powerful with her natural, animated and charming presence, totally immersed in herself.

While most of her songwriting has a melancholic connotation, which adds depth to the sugar sweet electro pop singalongs, witnessing her channel her alchemy in a live environment is more of a life affirming, joyful event that holistically embraces the darker shades of one’s nature rather than a gloomy commiseration.

Björk-esque in many aspects as she serves her Norse folk ballads on the rocks over a variety of synthesizers and other electronic curios, her down-to-earth demeanor is accentuated by her powerful vocal range and abilities, at times reminiscent of The Cranberries’ Dolores O’Riordan’s lifting mezzo-soprano voice and trademarked yodeling, which conveys every nuance of emotion with the occasional heartfelt emotional outburst, emphasized by mime, gestures and dramatic expression and amplified by her impeccable sense of timing.

What makes her endearing and transports the warmth from within the tight-knit band onto the spectators is that she seems genuinely overwhelmed by the warm reception she receives from the appreciative audience, while having herself a bit of fun.

There is little doubt that this is all just the beginning and that Aurora has a great artistic career in front of her. You would not want to miss out on catching her in her current formative stage, where she still shapes, refines and further molds her very own signature style.

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photos by KAVV

Jimmy Eat World
Enmore Theatre
Sydney, AUS
January 18, 2017

Non-fanatics might mistake Jimmy Eat World for one of those emo-alternative bands that had one major hit song in the 1990s and then stopped recording or touring, ignorant to the fact that what has now evolved to a five piece live band that originated as a quartet in 1993, has a career spanning over more than two decades under its belt.

Jimmy Eat Word is quintessentially a pop-punk band with a knack for song writing and lyrically meandering within the confines of heartbreak and emotional injury.

A very tight one at that when it comes to live performances: The Arizona based band is a well-oiled machine, tight knit and able to effortlessly recreate pitch perfect renditions of their oeuvre, relinquishing sing-a-longs from their disciples.

The show was comprised of a close to two hour set stretching across an eclectic mix of tracks from their nine album catalogue, with an emphasis on the most recent emission, Integrity Blues. While die-hard fans might argue that the band excels with their new material, it was the tried and tested crowd-pleaser did not fail to elicit a more enthusiastic reaction from the largely lethargic crowd, i.e. Billboard Hot 100 chart hit The Middle, Sweetness and the fantastic, hard-hitting title song (which was called Salt sweat sugar in the UK) of their mainstream breakthrough album Bleed American, which was re-released on vinyl by the Beastie Boys’ label Grand Royal and turned out to be one of their most straight forward, accessible and all out rock’n roll efforts and manifested their status in commercial rock..

Headed and driven by gracious lead guitarist and principal songwriter Jim Adkins, his signature youthful and at times melancholic, soul-tinged trademark vocals is the foundation that the band is based on and which fuels the swaying DNA.

While it is refreshing to see how sincerely appreciative the band seems to be of its followers, a bit more engaging crowd interaction would have gone a long way – especially as even the smallest effort in that department was welcomed and echoed by a crowd that apart from these rare occurrences mirrored the bands reserved demeanor.

Two decades on, Jimmy Eat World live is still anchored in a no-nonsense perfectly executed riff and vocal driven clean cut show without too many edges, that allows one to space out.

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Photos by KAVV

Siro-A
The Concourse
Chatswood, AUS
January 14, 2017

Siro-A are from Sendai, Japan, and their name apparently translates to something along the lines of “difficult to pin down” – a telling name as their show would prove.

Touted as multi-media “digital techno circus,” the seven constituents that make the performance group Siro-A have created a unique, upbeat mélange of highly choreographed dance arrangements, mime, precision, music and technology.

Front and rear video projections, an extensive light show as well as digital animations blend seamlessly in with the troupe’s dance theatre routines and deliberately blur the dividing lines between reality, illusion, imagination and technology.

Homages and re-enactments of famous scenes from movies and arcade games, visuals, play acting and incorporating the audience into the performance via cameras and projections make every show an immersive occurrence with a sense of spontaneity.
Siro-A ‘s show is based on timing and minute planning all the while making it seem like a playful effortless effort garnished with humour and deliberately crossing and defying genres.

Each performer brings his own personality to the show and adds a colourful layer, the sum of which create a doorway that transports the audience into another world.

At times one cannot help but feel in tune with Kevin Flynn, the main protagonist in the 1982 science fiction opus Tron: We witness Siro-A perform inside the software world of a mainframe computer where they interact with both the virtual reality while communicating and interacting with the audience.

A clever show pushing the envelope of conventional dance theatre and performance art, while creating a sense of wonder and transcending language and appealing to all ages.

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Photo from the group's Facebook page

Richard III

Schauspielbühne Berlin

Guest performance at the Grand Theatre, Hong Kong Cultural Centre

December 30, 2016

Richard III is one of Shakespeare’s earliest works, first believed to be performed around 1593 and as it is often the case with villains, the title character’s allure lies first and foremost in his unbridled, single-minded, gleefully exhibited amorality, executing his revenge and acting out what most would love to but would never dare.

Having served his family on the battlefield of the War of Roses, Richard enabled his brother Edward to become king. Outcast and sidelined because of his hideous exterior, he masks his seething malevolence behind his hunchbacked deformities and grows to become a Machiavellian psychopath and masterful manipulator.

Cold bloodedly he slaughters his family, marries his victim’s widow and eventually betrays his allies, all in his enraged quest to become king to lord over a world he was never meant and denied to ever be a part of.

Triumphant in his pursuits and as the last man standing, he eventually has to face his true nemesis and the demons it is infested with, which takes all but a deep, hard look in the mirror.

Schauspielbühne Berlin was founded in 1962. It is known for its stylistic variety, the most prominent advocate of which is its superintendent Thomas Ostermeier, who formed the foundation of his tenure with the establishment of a permanent cast that is regularly extended by new appointments.

The Schaubuehne’s search for a contemporary and experimental theatre language informs Ostermeier’s daringly re-imagined approach to directing one of Shakespeare’s earlier works, which is based on a splanchnic production and an unorthodox translation of Shakespeare’s script into German:

Marius von Mayenburg tackled the challenge of simplifying Shahespeare’s complex and often convoluted thoughts by letting go of verse and rhyme and thereby focusing on the condensation of the meaning instead, making it intelligible and translating it into a contemporary, easy to understand plot while at times allowing moments that let the power of the original poetry shine through.

Mayenburg manages to find an experimental modern-day mode of communication that offers a different and easier access to Shakespeare’s original.

Going past the surface of the mise-en-scène, it is the seductive power and variable rhythm of the idiosyncratic language that gives this incarnation of Richard III. an edge and additional dimension, much more than just the pure evilness of the main protagonist.

This is intensified by Lars Eidinger portrayal of Richard III by addressing the audience directly, confiding in it, making it a partner in crime and thereby establishing a relationship that operates on a meta-level both above and below the actual play.

Mingling with the audience and either equipped with a costume that amplifies Richard’s deformations or confrontationally in the nude, he dominates the stage, a microphone in hand commenting on his lecherous exploits, ultimately coming to face and succumbing to his own demons.

It is because of his convincing delivery that it feels like a missed chance, when he breaks character at one point admitting to having forgotten his lines due to the impact of jetlag when he has to rely on the services of a prompter: Instead of explaining and admitting to the audience that he dried, it would have been a perfect opportunity to go off script and not break character.

Same goes for Eidinger dealing with audience members nonchalantly arriving 30 minutes late and causing disturbances to the performance -- a widespread phenomenon omnipresent among theatre audiences in wider China: It would have been an excellent opportunity to unleash a barrage of exaggerated insults Richard-style, instead of engaging in a chit-chat about traffic problems and thereby breaking character.

Ostermeier placed a drum kit on stage, and incorporates noisey guitar interludes that set a contemporary stage for Richard rock star qualities, which he revels in, microphone in hand, channeling his sinister alchemy to engage and form a bond with the audience. Eidinger takes them by the hand, makes them witnesses and accomplices, and has them follow him on his deprived path, all the while teasing and exploring man’s innermost abyss.

What makes his portrayal of Richard relatable is the borderline pornographic way he wears and licks his wounds, the exemplifications of how he has been mistreated and showing where his resentments and traumata stem from.

Combined with Marius von Mayenburg’s compelling dissection of the relationships between the characters and the creation of tragic-comical situations, especially towards the end when Richard becomes his own worst enemy, almost evokes a sense of empathy for the villain.

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Photos by KAVV