concerts thread.

[Ruby]

Not a concert per se – more a gig, by one Hezron Chetty and some sidekicks – drum and bass/keyboardist. Lots of looping and repetition, which is fine – sounds get built up that way and it can work really well in a live setting if it’s done properly – unfortunately, amongst other ills, in this instance the repetition was hypnotic - but not in a good way; it was also way too loud and heavy for the setting. What they produced would not have sounded out of place in a medieval castle, on a wild Scottish highland, a sort of Celtic Goth thing, but it was all far too much for a venue with dubious acoustics that is designed to seat around sixty people, added to which the sound guy quite happily admitted to surfer’s ear and needed to be told what was distorting and needed fixing, etc., which he admittedly took in good humour, lol!! He got well and truly directed by a bunch of, errr – whatever it is one is called when far too old to be a groupie (which is probably something not very complimentary!)  .
 
Chetty is built up by his PR people who reference Ali Farke Toure, which I really didn’t get, in the slightest, and then some journo had the nerve to mention Pink Floyd in the same breath, which is plain ridiculous. Unbelievable. Chetty is dismissive of conventional/classical violinists, and interestingly, he has an album out titled The Fallacy of Composition. Personally, I think he could use a large helping of composition plus some humble pie served up on a leaf out of a fiddling legend or two’s books. I doubt that will happen as he seems quite self-assured and reasonably popular in circles of listeners who don’t know better, which is very snobbish of me to say, I know, however, while he wields a decent bow, and appears to go down a treat at festivals, there’s a lot to live up to out there! I certainly don’t believe he’s breaking any new ground, and a Jean-Luc Ponty or David Lindley, he most certainly is not – let’s not even talk about the heavyweights, such as Itzhak Perlman.
 
I wouldn’t go and listen to him again but it would be great if he DID succeed because anyone with such a clear passion for what he’s doing really deserves that. Just think a better defined direction would be good, he's too much all over the place - but this is merely my opinion – perhaps it is wrong – who knows?? 

This clip is not one he played, to the best of my recall, and studio is different of course.

[Jerome]

Where did you see this guy Ruby?

[Ruby]

^Camel Rock Jerome - Scarborough.

[Ruby]

There’s a park in the middle of the southern suburbs of Cape Town which is famously home to annual performances of Shakespeare’s plays, as well as other performances of music and dance – it’s an open air theatre. I went to the Symphonic Shakespeare concert this weekend – music under the stars accompanied by a few raucous guinea fowl, some equally raucous humans (who were clearly under the weather but fortunately a little way away), the distant wailing of emergency sirens, evening birdsong, and intermittent rushes of mean black south-easter through old oaks and bamboo, not forgetting the smells of progressively chilly night air, proper coffee and smoky wafts from the inevitable braai (that would be barbeque to most of you); sensory overload! Lol!

Surprisingly, the acoustics are great – magical to see those instruments against the backdrop of a glade of stately trees. In my imagination, it’s like the strings have come home, and somehow the double basses, cellos and violins resonate with the other rooted woods.

The full Philharmonic orchestra played a collection of works paying tribute to the bard – I preferred the second half of the billing which was Mendelssohn’s Midsummernight’s Dream overture, Walton’s As You Like It: A poem for orchestra, and Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet Suite. Orchestras are quite fascinating, IMHO – love watching them – the precision, and unison, and the fact that every instrument counts – yep – even the triangle!

Walton’s overture – this recording by The Academy of St Martin in the Fields … 

[Jerome]

^Camel Rock Jerome - Scarborough.

Oh right - thx - have not been there in many a moon - used to be a favourite stop years ago.