Alas, my most anticipated show for this year was unexpectedly cancelled. But it was for good reason. In the wake of Japan's earthquake, they decided to cancel/postpone their Asian tour, which included Japan. My heart goes out to the victims and country. God bless the nation and may it be restored to peace soon.
16 Mar: Tze N the Looking Glass - Stories from Wonderland
My friend Tze, and his Looking Glass ensemble were performing at the HTC Living Room (@Concourse) this year, so to show my support I went there with a friend. She also agreed that he was good. Theirs was a fusion mix of music with the piano, erhu, Indian violin, and saxophone. I can't say I'm able to appreciate fusion music that well, but I enjoyed the piano solos and interestingly, the erhu blended quite well. I think the sound system and set up could have been much improved. Certain instruments were too loud at points and drowned out the others. Also, the mic on the violin fell off...twice! Causing disruption to the music. But the show went on, with the rest playing, while the tech guy tried to fix the mic problem.
As I said a couple of times, I still prefer his solos and later that evening, I asked him if he will release his own album. He said he was thinking about it. Well, hope he does. Anyway, the album has 2 of his solos "Prelude to Fly With Me" and "Stories from Wonderland".
20 March: Ed Harcourt
One man and seven mics (minus 1 for the piano); plus 1 piano, 2 guitars (electric & acoustic), 1 drum. With this set-up, you can expect something out of the ordinary. I asked my friend "Is he going to play all that himself?". And so he did. Wow!
Opening with Lustre, a song inspired by the birth of his daughter, Ed surrounded the Recital Studio with his music. He used 2 mics for different effects. Actually, he had 3 mics to sing into at the piano, each for different effects, used at different points in the concert. He was really good at the piano, but not restricted to that, he played the guitars too for songs like Church of No Religion, Born in the 70s, etc.
It turned awkward at one point, early on, with a technical glitch in the amp and he did an unplugged version of The Last Cigarette as he moved among the audience, while the tech guy came to fix the problem. Other problems came along as he took some time to tune his guitars, but all worked out eventually.
Things really upped when he fascinated us (me at least) with a live mix where he had some device to record and loop what he played, while he added on parts and instruments. I've never seen something like this before. His live performance was different from his recordings, the way he mixed the songs and played them live. His spasms of humour also livened up the crowd, making us howl like wolves for Heart of a Wolf, etc. attributing the performance to "an equal balance of chaos and professionalism".
I don't know how I would describe his music, alternative probably, with some electronica? rock? at some points, I could even hear some country in him, with his "grunge" voice. As my friend puts it, he's "at once brooding country gentleman, bad boy sheriff, earnest scientist".
What I really liked about his songs is the way he writes his lyrics. There's something about them that makes them unique. His music kind of grows on you.
He ended with a four-song encore, answering requests from the audience, and ended with Haywired.
Oh ya, I'm left "haywired" in a mind loop.
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