I suppose with this gig reviewing kind of caper, you’ll get to see something that is slightly bizarre, out of your comfort zone, and just plain weird. I shouldn’t be so freaked out by it by now, but occasionally, something comes along that makes me wonder, “what the heck was that?”. In part this is what this gig wanted me to ask. It challenged me, it made me wonder about others choices in music, and it made me question about the whole conventionality that music seems to want to pull on a leash.
BJ Morrizonkle is in another world in performance really. A guy with two synths and a bass drum triggered off by his feet. He played a sound scape of soundtrack tunes, both of his own composition as well as from other obscure movies. His interpretation of the theme to ‘Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind’ was a spinning wonder of piano and a horn section.
I wanted to go and see the movie just to listen to it again, because from of the many spectral things that the film portrays, the music wasn’t one of them. In addition to this, we saw intriguing stories and instrumentals about girlfriends and short piano pieces that wouldn’t be out of place in a school hall. Listening to the soundtrack on its own opened my ears. It was an unusual set indeed, but bizarrely I think I want to see more musicians like BJ Morrizonkle get up on stage like this.
Hawaiian tinged tunes of modern and former times smattered the set of The Ukeladies, playing their last show for a while Amanda from the duo heads off to the USA to study music. From the theme to ‘Xanadu’ and ‘A Summer Place‘ to traditional Hawaiian tunes. The honey tinged vocals moved along with the sweet swaying tunes that came from the stage. I only wished that sometimes the set moved from the walking pace tempo within nearly all the songs. ‘Old Devil Moon’ was a nice change in the set which saw the bossa nova influences on the duo and backing band, but I found it all slightly meandering along.
Nevertheless, we heard sophisticated crooning from the two ladies which went well with the crowd. As the set flowed along I was trying to figuring out what alcohol would have suited the tracks being performed. I would have settled for a cocktail, but it wasn’t that kind of venue, that probably was also part of the minor problem too. I don’t think music of this type suited for a Sunday night in the very cold Winter night. A Sunday afternoon, yes, and maybe in any other season than winter too, but hey, I’m not a venue booker.
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