James Blake at the o2 Academy Bristol

This is just going to be a quick post, and for once it's not about film or theatre, but music (yay)! On Tuesday night I went to see James Blake at the o2 academy here in Bristol. At a mere £12.50 tickets were a steal. We weren't really bothered about seeing James' supporting act 'The Twigs', but from what we did see they were pretty good (Alunageorge/ London Grammar-esque, which is always a good thing).

James performed a wide variety of songs - from upbeat to sombre, old to new, and made sure to include plenty of classics. Anyone who has listened to his music will know he has a beautiful, liquid voice, and a fantastic vocal range, and these aspects were maintained perfectly in his live performances. Personally, I prefer his piano-pieces and songs with plenty of lyrics as opposed to the more instrumental and techno experiments, but it was nice to hear a variety and mash-up swaying love-songs with head-nodding dance-y tracks. He performed most of the songs on his new album, Overgrown (which is great, well worth a buy), and there were only perhaps 2 songs that I'd never heard before.

Highlights included:-

1. 'Limit to Your Love' - A classic, always beautiful. One audience member informed the rest of us that she lost her virginity to this song. James looked very bemused. 
2. 'A Case of You' - This is my all-time favourite cover, ever. I love Jon Mitchell (old before my time), and I love James Blake, so together they're basically perfection. Was thrilled that he did this song. 
3. Not musical - but the lighting was really great! Very moody and intense, complimenting James' music brilliantly.
4. ' The Wilhelm Scream' - James performed this as his encore, using a 'loop' (which my friend informed me is where you record part of a song then sing over it, like a round). He asked the audience to be silent for this, and it was nice (and kind of eerie) to see a sold-out crowd stood hushed and rapt. 

In fact, the only thing I have to complain about is the audience itself. There were people talking loudly during piano solos and throughout - which was really distracting. I don't mind people singing along, I think that shows your appreciation for/knowledge of the songs/artist, but chatting away about what you had for lunch or who's seeing who is quite frankly rude and offensive both to the performer, and to the other audience members who have paid to listen to James Blake - not Sandra from Hull with chiropractic problems. Also irritating was the sheer abundance of iPhone/pad/bloody computers thrust in the air and held aloft during every. single. song. Yeah, take a couple of snaps to show your friends, but why are you videoing the whole thing rather than watching the live performance you're currently at - you might as well be sat at home in bed in your PJ's watching YouTube clips. Not only is this charade nonsensical, its freaking annoying! It was so packed that I constantly had to crane my neck and move around to see anyway (not the tallest person), but as soon as I'd found an OK position someone would brandish their mega-watt mobile device under my nose, completely obstructing the view. Never before have I had such a hatred of apple products. 

Sorry for the rant, maybe this is just concert etiquette in 2013? My last 'concert' (barring music festivals) was Oasis in 2009, so I'm slightly behind the times - but that was all impassioned singing and swigging cider, much nicer than standing like a tinned fish with someone sticking up their sweaty pit to record a video they'll probably never watch again anyway.

Back to the music. I'd recommend James Blake live to absolutely anyone. He is one artist who's live performances barely differ from recordings, and he's a genuinely likeable guy! 4 stars ****

Helicon blog links!

If you are interested in creative arts, take a look at the Helicon magazine blog! http://heliconbristol.blogspot.co.uk

Helicon is the University of Bristol's student-run creative arts magazine, and I'm one of the prose editors. It is a fabulous publication! We have three paper magazines published every year; each issue has a different theme, the last one was 'Journey' and our current theme is 'Perception'. We also have a year-round blog which is regularly updated with interesting posts. Prose, poetry, art, photography and music - its all there: so take a look!

If you'd like to read the things I have written personally, here are some links to my posts - but do take a general look, as there's always something going on!

Read about Bryan Lewis Saunders, the artist who took 25 different drugs to produce 25 fascinating self-portraits: http://heliconbristol.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/25-drugs-25-days.html

Or how about Louis Wain, the artist who suffered with Schizophrenia, and who's work reflects his affliction: http://heliconbristol.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/louis-wain-effects-of-schizophrenia-on.html

Have a penchant for Salvador Dali? http://heliconbristol.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/salvador-dali.html

Narrative's of perception: http://heliconbristol.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/if-doors-of-perception-were-cleansed.html

Daniel Richter's amazing art: http://heliconbristol.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/daniel-richter.html

Havisham! http://heliconbristol.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/i-want-diversion-and-i-have-done-with.html

A little bit of Sexton's poetry: http://heliconbristol.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/between-seasons.html

Nobel prize for literature winning Mo Yan: http://heliconbristol.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/mo-yan.html

Why do poets love bees?! http://heliconbristol.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/the-buzz-word.html

A Clockwork Orange's unique language: http://heliconbristol.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/a-clockwork-orange-zammechat.html


Happy Reading!

'The Glass Menagerie' : 'a deeply intimate, affecting piece of drama' *****

The Falstaff Society's recent production of Tennessee Williams' 'The Glass Menagerie' was simply exquisite. 'The Glass Menagerie' tells the story of Amanda Wingfield, a faded Southern belle, and her two 'dysfunctional' children, who struggle to get by after being abandoned by their father. Tom works at a warehouse by day, but is a poet at heart; he craves adventure and excitement, which he attempts to inject into his stultifying daily routine through incessant late-night trips to the movie theatre. Laura, crippled by a childhood illness, has an 'inferiority complex', and concurrently actively excludes herself from society, choosing to remain indoors and play old phonograph records and cultivate her 'Glass Menagerie': a collection of tiny glass animals. 

Performed in the Alma Tavern, a small, intimate location, the set was sparse; however, as the action unfolded the sparsity of the set became fundamental, offsetting the passion of the action, and the poetry of Tom's soliloquies. 

Ed Phillips embodied Tom perfectly, combining wry humour with a subtle, attractive American twang. He accurately portrays the frustration of a creative man confined by the harsh necessity of reality, in thrall to the invisible, yet un-ignorable social maxims of the sanctity of 'duty' and 'family'; his wistful speeches convey a fervent longing for adventure and titillation, superseding the stultifying drudgery of everyday life. Phillips commanded the stage beautifully, confidently projecting his voice during his soliloquies, and conveying similar strength when interacting with the other characters; Tom's exchanges with his mother were particularly compelling, presenting the tension between old-world convention and new American optimism, paling authority and aspirational youth.  

Letty Thomas as Amanda was similarly wonderfully cast. 'The Glass Menagerie' thrives as much on what does not happen as what does; Amanda's nostalgic, fragmented memories of her long-passed girlhood - the 'seventeen Gentlemen callers' at her door, the accommodating slaves, the 'Southern hospitality' - conveyed a longing which uncannily parallels that of her sons: while Tom hungers for a rich, vibrant future, she struggles to cling to a hazy simulacrum of former glory. 

Laura is an complex, inexplicable entity. Alice Kirk did a fabulous job of subtly communicating both the physical defects, and the debilitating internal monsters which plague Laura's life, inhibiting her potential to flourish. Her strange idiosyncrasy of obsessively playing with and humanizing her glass ornament collection is another mutation of the desperate longing that hampers her mother and brother; projecting one's affections onto inanimate objects is simply another form of escapism - like going to the movie theatre, or obsessing over gentlemen callers - only this escape is to the internal recesses of the imagination. 

Oliver Bahbout as 'freckles' or Jim O'Connor, burst onto the scene with incongruous optimism. Bahbout excellently injected a typically, undeniably American positivism that harshly jarred with the sensitive, delicate internal struggles we had seen develop so fully in each of the characters throughout the first half of the play. His scene with Laura really was a fascinating, compelling piece of drama; it presented the clash of the introvert and extrovert, the pessimist and optimist, the socially-stunted and the socially-inflated persona. 'Freckles' moralizing seemed - as it should seem - like a violation of Laura's individuality, and I strangely found myself willing her to resist his advances and his pompous assumption that 'public speaking' is the future of America: I wished her to be free from her private demons, but not via the methods O'Connor proposes. 

'The Glass Menagerie' was a deeply intimate, affecting piece of drama, presenting a wonderfully intricate spectrum of interweaving, inter-lapping, yet entirely distinct psychologies. In a play of only four characters, each could have an entire two hours devoted to their particular stories, and still keep an audience wholly in rapture. 

Particular credit must go to the play's directors, Maureen Lennon and Theo Scholefield, who excellently transformed the raw material of Williams's already rich script into an unforgettable theatrical performance, with undeniable skill and economy. 

Undoubtedly a five star production. *****

''Yes, I have tricks in my pocket, I have things up my sleeve. But I am the opposite of a stage magician. He gives you illusion that has the appearance of truth. I give you truth in the pleasant disguise of illusion.'' (1.1, Tom).