Today was one of those in which I love London weather: crispy but not too chilly, generally clear and sunny but with huge black clouds passing by. I had the chance to do a short walk around lunchtime and at some point I simply had to indulge and stop dashing, relax, slow down and stare around a little bit.
The evening also came with a wonderful halloween treat. After work I went straight to the Roundhouse in Chalk Farm where Imogen Heap was going to play tonight. I didn't know her at all (before tonight), but trusting Francesca's tastes and the fact that the line to get in was insanely long, I happily added myself to the insane mob and waited for the theatre to swallow us all.
In the meanwhile, I enjoyed a conversation with two really cute female yeti (that is, the costume was all white and snowflakelike) from San Francisco, California. Being caught between them on one side and my Canadian friend on the other immediately short circuited my oldworld-trained english translating neuron (yeah, it's just one and goes by the name of Jeeves), so for the most part of our queue time I just nodded politely. Oh by the way I featured a nice "tamed werewolf" costume that nobody understood. Go figure.
When finally we got to the inside of the round shaped building, I had a double revelation: 1. the roundhouse is a really cool place. It's got a wooden dome and black, old fashioned metallic columns dividing the balconies from the pit/stage area. The impression I had by looking at it ceiling to floor and following the wooden structure lines meeting the iron and wires and stage lights was that of a well organized complexity.
The artist herself was the second (2) revelation. Nothing astonishingly new, but done with style. The way she live records herself and the other instruments to build a multi-track performance that gets more and more complex as the theme unveils is quite something. And in more than one occasion I just found myself pleasantly "tricked" as she chose some unexpected passage or combination of chords and rhythm.
Finally, before Imogen played this guy, armed just with a trumpet and a powerbook; couldn't pick up his name, but definitely have to find out who he is (and his records).
Like all best fairy tales, the evening ended quite early but, as I wrote, with the nice warm fuzzy feeling of fresh discoveries.
Glad to hear you discovered Immi/enjoyed the show!
The trumpet dude's name is Arve Henriksen, he's Norwegian and his website can be found here: http://www.arvehenriksen.no/
Unfortunately he's not on myspace, so no track previews there!
Thank you James!!!
Yeah, Immi is cool, will keep her on radar from now on.