Matmatah arrived onstage in confident style – kicking off their brand of 70s hard-rock influenced pop – with predominantly French lyrics – to a near packed house. It didn’t take the predominantly French crowd long to realise that despite Yann Tiersen’s recent rock explorations, the chosen openers’ style would be in stark contrast to man they had come to see. Both acts hail from Brittany in the north west of France – and tonight proved this was the only thing Matmatah and Yann Tiersen share in common.
For the most part featuring songs from their most recent studio album Archie Kramer, Matmatah displayed catchy melodies, occasionally coming off like a Gaelic sounding Cheap Trick. More recent songs like Gotta Go Now, and Radio Edit displayed straight ahead rock while the folky-acoustic Alzheimer - a song penned about what I took to be American cultural-imperialism (bless the French) was the odd quiet part of the set. Followed later by a faithful rendition of The Stooges I Wanna Be Your Dog the band seemed to find their footing with the largely static crowd. Or perhaps it was due to the fact that they ended their set with the two early singles that propelled them to fame in France – ‘Lambé en dro’ and ode to Lambezellec, an old hang-out in their hometown of Brest and the popular rocker Emma. The sheer teenage nostalgia was far from lost on the ex-pat crowd.
Taking the stage with a stripped back five-piece band, the wirey Yann Tiersen barely spoke to the crowd, preferring to let his music, and brilliant musicianship do the talking. Not that the Frenchman has difficulty with words. Opening his set with the melancholic Monochrome - which boasts beautiful English verse, he followed straight into Bagatelle from L’absente. Often shunning vocals for instrumental pieces, Tiersen’s band created extended versions of new and old songs, in a raw, bare-bones fashion. Gone were the pianos and string sections present on his earlier albums, Yann Tiersen and his fellow musicians opted instead to create sonic, swelling gestures that were perhaps lost on the crowd at times.
Of course the Metro audience was not dissapointed when Tiersen dipped into his catalogue of songs from the popular Amelie soundtrack. Les Jours Triste and Sur le Fil were extended for the stage slightly but still recognisable and gained massive applause from those clearly there for to hear only these.
When the other musicians left the stage Tiersen was able to hold the audience captivated with his virtuosic mastery of the violin, nevertheless the overall excitement of the night’s performance seemed to waver every now and then. I wasn’t sure if it was my unfamiliarity with his back catalogue or the fact that at times I felt the music never really peaked beyond a certain point, rather stagnating when Tiersen’s own vocal melodies were not complimenting his unique compositions.
Still, although I left feeling satisfied and not wanting more after the second encore, Yann Tiersen proved himself an expert musician and managed to put on a unique performance that introduced me to much more than the music from Amelie – music of a style that Yann Tiersen can be proud to lay claim to.
