Slow Music Night @ The SydneyOpera House (4/06/2010)

Tue 8th Jun, 2010 in Gig Reviews

Vivid LIVE 2010 has been a truly unique event, with Reed and Anderson picking seemingly contrasting artists, a huge variety has been created aimed at pleasing as many as possible. After about 7 or so ‘Noise’ gigs, I found myself at the more chilled, Slow Music Night, one of the centerpieces of the entire Festival.

As I entered the Recital Hall, the largest faculty in the Opera House I noticed the large stage furnished like a Bohemian style living room. From the onset the night looked like it was going to be an entertaining ride, even before an artist was even in sight.

The first act to take the stage was My Brightest Diamond’s Shara Worden and Colin Stetson armed with his trademark bass saxophone. The duet began the night in a perfect style with Worden demonstrating her powerful voice and Stetson, who accompanied Worden using a circulatory breathing method allowing him to sustain notes for minutes without stopping to take a breath, was no short of amazing.

Metric’s Emily Haines followed and played songs, accompanied by saxophonist Doug Weiselman to a highly receptive crowd. Haines gave the crowd a taste of her captivating music and distinctive voice and would return later in the show, but we’ll get on to that later in the review.

One of the many highlights of the night was the trio of Doveman, Marc Ribot and saxophonist Doug Weiselman. Doveman’s songwriting and vocal abilities were prevalent throughout the performance, which included a cover of Neil Young’s Only Love Can Break Your Heart, drawing parallels with the late and legendary, Elliott Smith.

Marc Ribot and Doug Weiselman provided fantastically inventive accompaniments to these songs and after Doveman left the stage Ribot and Weiselman both played solo pieces before leaving the stage themselves.

Laurie Anderson acted as compare for the night, entertaining the audience with her wit and proving furthermore that she was a fantastic and commanding speaker. Anderson introduced New York based singer-songwriter Holly Miranda donned the stage who took the stage playing several songs including hit Waves.

One of the more innovative performances of the night was a Tai Chi demonstration from Reed’s New York teacher, Master Ren GuanYi accompanied by music produced by Lou Reed and Metal Machine Trio collaborator, Seth Calhoun. Ren GuanYi gave two demonstrations, a conventional Tai Chi demonstration and an intense sword demonstration all in time with the music of Calhoun and Reed.

The Blind Boys of Alabama, clearly were a crowd favourite judging from the deafening applause they recieved throughout their short set. Accompanied by Shara Worden, the Boys played several originals and a cover of Lou Reed and Velvet Underground song, Jesus.

Another extremely unique act was Tuvan throat singers, Chirgilchin. The four piece played their own hand made instruments while demonstrating to the audience the unique voicing style of throat singing, which was enthralling and became almost mystical in nature, completely entrancing the audience.

Returning to the stage, was the first act, of Shara Worden and Colin Stetson, playing through two songs, the second of which was one of the most entertaining moments I witnessed throughout the entire Vivid Festival.

The very pregnant Shara Worden danced across the stage while Stetson played a funk-style beat on his sax, however Worden’s pipes were the main focus of the performance, demonstrating herself as one of the most talented vocalists in contemporary music.

The final act of this festival defining event, was curators themselves, Lou Reed and Laurie Anderson. Accompanied by Emily Haines, Reed delivered a beautiful rendition of Transformer hit, Perfect Day easily proving to be one of, if not the best performance of the night.

Closing the show, Reed sang through the song Vanishing Act, accompanied by Doveman. Whilst singing the lyrics “How nice it is to disappear, float into a mist, with a young lady on your arm, looking for a kiss” Reed gazed into the eyes of Anderson and smiled, and a smile from Lou Reed is pretty damn rare.

Only paralleled by Noise Night in scope, Slow Music Night presented ticket-holders with an extremely special and unique night, exploring beautiful, intimate and innovative music, offering a taste of a vast range of musicians and presenting truly interesting and exquisite combination of collaborations.

Vivid LIVE 2010 has met and exceeded the expectations set by last year’s Eno curated festival with Reed and Anderson’s carefully picked and contrasting line-up from Boris to Melt-Banana to Doveman. I don’t know who is going to be picked to curate next year, but man, they’ve got some massive shoes to fill.

Check out the photos from the gig here