Lior @ ArtBar, Perth(08/07/10)

Mon 12th Jul, 2010 in Gig Reviews

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Seeing Lior at ArtBar was a little like hanging out with him in a lounge room; if your lounge room is really big, full of strangers and has a massive egg sack thing made mostly of human hair hanging in the middle of it like a grotesque chandelier.

Lior was sharing the space with the Relativity exhibition by Patricia Piccinini; a confronting look at life, evolution and relationships, that took the form of incredibly real looking sculptures of things you’d rather not look at. It was both fascinating and disgusting; as good art should be. Artwork aside, the gig was an intimate affair, with people draped casually up the staircase and others making themselves comfortable on the cold, tiled floor and some even enjoying a bit of dinner. It was Lior himself that made the big room seem small; he was so casual and charming and friendly that he could have been an old friend who invited you to come around to his place to listen to him play – along with a string quartet and a double-bassist of course.

Lior is known for his enjoyment of visualisation accompanying his music; his Shadow’s and Light tour presented his songs alongside shadow-puppet interpretations, so it was no wonder they asked him to take part in the ArtBar series. We were glad he took time out of recording his new album to play for us. Along with the stories rhythmically painted in his songs and the aforementioned exhibition, he also had local VJ Kat Black a.k.a VJzoo projecting visuals along the walls and balconies to add yet another dimension to the evening.

We were immediately presented with brand new song These are the Days, and told we were the very first people to hear this performed live. If this song is a good representation of what is to come, the new album will certainly be showing up on a few Christmas wish lists this year. Then he took us into more familiar territory with that bouncing, happy riff leading into Autumn Flow, with the explanation that he wrote this song when his first album was being made and his first child was being born, a song that just churned out of him in fifteen minutes, but somehow perfectly encompasses exactly how he felt about that time in his life. This was obviously a favourite for most people there; with an honesty and simplicity that strikes a chord in so many people. The song lends itself to a bit of improvisation, and he played on at the end with a bit of not-quite-scat, but more of a free-improv that seemed to flow naturally from the music and theme of the song itself. He even continued a little after the applause with a cheeky “…I’m only singing this bit so I can get more applause for the same song…” – and of course we were only too happy to oblige.

More than a musician, Lior is a great storyteller; every song had a little anecdote about why or when it was written or a time he performed it. He told us how so many people told him they’d met the person Daniel was written about; because there are so many Daniels, he suggested that he may give every song a person’s name and sell millions of albums. Before he played that beautiful song that every girl wishes was written for her, This Old Love, he reminded us of a time he played at the Fly-by-Night club when a guy got up on stage just before he sang this song, to propose to his girlfriend. That same evening, while backstage, he wrote the riff for another of his new songs, They Don’t Know What’s Going On. This song focuses on how he felt when he saw footage of soldiers killed in Afghanistan and how so much of what happens over there is unknown to us, and what we see is so very different from what really goes on.

It was surprising that he chose to include in the set the gorgeous folk duo he recorded with Sia, I’ll Forget You, considering he had no female singer. Lior said that usually, he tries to tour with a female support act, so she can perform this duet with him, but this time, he was teamed up with Timothy Nelson, whose vocal range and tone probably wouldn’t quite cut it for this particular song. So instead of cutting it from the set-list, he took a massive gamble and asked if anyone in the audience thought they would be able to sing it with him. Now getting fans up on stage to sing usually ends badly, with an absolute butchering of an otherwise great song, but somehow this time, the volunteer could actually sing, and not just do ok, but actually sing the beautiful, complex harmonies, meshing perfectly with Lior’s smooth tones. The songstress confessed that she had bribed the promoter to get tickets to this sold out show; and we are all so glad that she managed to come. Lior commented afterwards that asking the audience to sing is “a little bit like a lottery”; he seemed a little astounded, and probably relieved that he actually managed a win.

No show is complete without a cover version, and this time he gave us a Don McLean classic that he said he hated for years, Vincent. After discovering that the reason he hated it was because he was hearing the Julio Iglesias version, it is now a song he loves. With a few disparaging (and well-deserved) insults for Iglesias, he lead into the beautiful folk tune, so far removed from the re-made tripe that it was almost unrecognisable as the same song. He even gave us a little Iglesias impersonation for the benefit of a fan who made the mistake of saying she liked him, who looked suitably shamed.

One of the best performances of the evening though would have to be Diego and the Village Girl. So different from his other songs is this roots-driven ballad of a doomed love in Mexico. It really showcased his talent as a storyteller and excellent musician, as well as fabulous singer. The fusion of the rootsy western style with his signature middle-eastern flavoured vocals was just incredible.

He closed the evening with a beautiful Hebrew prayer Avinu Malkeinu sung in a hauntingly beautiful a Capella, that left us feeling speechless and honoured to have shared a magical evening with him.

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