The day started out with ‘The Show of Shows’ which I wrote about here. Next I saw William Tyler‘s deft fingers, spin and fan a guitar. Yes fan. A first for me.
The sound layered and filled Fríkirkjan with Tennessee mountain tales. Again music with no words and a lot of story. William spoke in between songs bringing his southern charm. After him was Tanya Tagqaq and her ensemble from Canada.
An hour of Inuk throat singing, blended with beats, violin, and total vocal improvisation. No words there either and it would be neat to say this all left me speechless but it was quite the opposite. I can’t stop talking about it. Luckily I have pictures to show you, too, which help.
The grand finale with many words and even more to say was Batida from Portugal. “Batida is the brainchild of Angolan/Portuguese Pedro Coquenão.
As a distinctly modern and vibrant project with its feet firmly rooted in the past, it combines samples from old 1970s Angolan tracks with modern electronic dance music.” Dancers, video, poetry, records, words, beats, music, story, charm, history, politics, heart.
They were the best musical performance I have seen in a year. Upon exiting, everyone left that show feeling high. Even me, who by 1am was in serious hangover, sleep-deprived pain. I am trying to play ‘Bazuka‘ right now for my friends over oatmeal for breakfast but it doesn’t translate from what I saw last night. At all. This is music you have to experience live. The night went from great to greater. And as for myself? When you’re on a sliding scale of ‘feeling like shit’, better isn’t really all that great. But it was still pretty fucking amazing all things considered.
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