Thursday, April 17, 2008
Moments like these
Manchester hasn't turned out to be quite the hotbed of musical happenings that I expected, but nevertheless there have been bright moments.
One such occasion was on Monday. After having handed in an assignment desperately concluded over the weekend, this was to be an evening of repair and recharge before ploughing into the next assignment. Yeap, that's the postgraduate life.
The venue was the Manchester Bridgewater Hall, considered to be one of the top performance venues in the region, a crowning glory in what is otherwise a rather drab part of town just a little out of the city centre that still bears the trademark architecture of the Industrial Revolution. Sharp, clean edges and a pristine glass facade stood out against the backdrop of brickwall ex-factories, next to a canal which was used to transport cotton and its finished goods before the advent of the combustion engine but now relegated to being a watery decoration, albeit a rather brackish one.
Next to it sat GMEX, an 1800s train station that is now an exhibition centre while in the background, the imposing silhouette of the Hilton towered over most of the city, a glass-clad sentinel standing guard and giving refuge to weary but well-heeled travellers. Topping it off was a curious sculpture in front of the halls' entrance, which was simply a huge, roundish rock. An overgrown pebble, perhaps the beginnings of a VW Beetle sculpture that was never quite finished.
I stepped into the venue with some time to kill, not wanting to spend it waiting outside in the cold. Briefly surveying the well-dressed, wine-sipping sorts who occupied the cafe, for a moment I felt a tickle at the back of my throat requiring the ease of some cool liquid. However, given the proliferation of delicate wine glasses and the occasional bottle of overpriced, under-brewed lager with not a healthy looking pint glass in sight, this tickling feeling was somewhat suppressed. A quick glance at the menu confirmed that this was indeed, just as well.
Out of curiosity, I then headed on to the gift shop tucked away in a little corner under the stairs leading up to the circle seats, and amused myself by looking at the price tags of the miniature instruments locked away in a glass cabinet like a Stradivarius at Sotheby's. The last time I saw anything similar was in a shoe storefront display at Peninsula Plaza. The various other trinkets on sale were a brutal assault on my fiscal and engineering sensibilities, their assigned value being hugely incongruent with their simple nature and attendant low cost of manufacture. Ah, the wonders of gift shops and the patrons who keep them sustainable.
Enough of that.
Stepping into the hall itself, my inner geek eagerly partook of its design in an attempt to correlate it with my area of study, which occupied me in a somewhat meaningful manner until the support act Jhelisa started. A jazz-influenced singer with a powerful voice and some interesting takes on the genre, she and her tastefully minimalist band gave an engaging performance. At times though, yours truly was pre-occupied with identifying the features and subtleties of the hall acoustics, the beginnings of an occupational hazard. It was, nevertheless, a good start to the evenings musical proceedings.
Mavis Staples took to the stage with aplomb. Amidst the intense tremolo-drenched guitar work, a trio of backup vocals and the hypnotic grooves of the rhythm section, she preached to a rather lacklustre audience a strong sermon that made clear in no uncertain terms what she stood for and what her lifelong passion was.
In between songs she spoke of a time and place where segregation and discrimination ruled the day, and a recurrent theme was her affection for her beloved grandmother, whom I reckon was a strong guiding force in such a tumultuous period. She spoke of her time in the family band The Staples Singers, led by her father Pop Staples and of their travels with Dr Martin Luther King on his journey to spread his seminal message. She spoke not with a sense of bitterness, but with a sense of purpose and a good dose of humour.
Perhaps the definitive moment of the evening for me was when she recounted how, in defying a restaurant owner's request for them to leave the premises and in the face of impending police action, a group of them linked hands and sang a song which she then launched into, “We Shall Not Be Moved”. Though this song has been appropriated for various other causes of similar or less worthy note, her heartfelt rendition made it sound like it was purpose-written and it was certainly an excellent cap on a set-list of gritty blues-influenced spirituals and protest songs.
And a gracious front-lady she was, giving her backup singers lead duties as she backed away from the microphone and her guitarist prime stage time to dazzle with blistering fretwork as she took seat at the back, perhaps a concession to age as well but not without clapping along and shouting encouragement. However, at no point of time was it ever in question who was presiding over this court. Though the passage of time had taken its toll on her vocal range and timbre, there was no denying the power and intensity of her performance. She exuded an aura of charisma that only comes with decades spent on the road, borne out of a genuine love for her craft and true dedication to her cause. Absent were the vocal acrobatics that characterises most practitioners of a certain genre that bears little resemblance to its original namesake. Instead, with her earnest, earthy baritone she put the blues back in rhythm and blues, and the soul back in soul.
An evening of repair and recharge it certainly was, although there was still that little tickle at the back of my throat. That was easily resolved.
One such occasion was on Monday. After having handed in an assignment desperately concluded over the weekend, this was to be an evening of repair and recharge before ploughing into the next assignment. Yeap, that's the postgraduate life.
The venue was the Manchester Bridgewater Hall, considered to be one of the top performance venues in the region, a crowning glory in what is otherwise a rather drab part of town just a little out of the city centre that still bears the trademark architecture of the Industrial Revolution. Sharp, clean edges and a pristine glass facade stood out against the backdrop of brickwall ex-factories, next to a canal which was used to transport cotton and its finished goods before the advent of the combustion engine but now relegated to being a watery decoration, albeit a rather brackish one.
Next to it sat GMEX, an 1800s train station that is now an exhibition centre while in the background, the imposing silhouette of the Hilton towered over most of the city, a glass-clad sentinel standing guard and giving refuge to weary but well-heeled travellers. Topping it off was a curious sculpture in front of the halls' entrance, which was simply a huge, roundish rock. An overgrown pebble, perhaps the beginnings of a VW Beetle sculpture that was never quite finished.
I stepped into the venue with some time to kill, not wanting to spend it waiting outside in the cold. Briefly surveying the well-dressed, wine-sipping sorts who occupied the cafe, for a moment I felt a tickle at the back of my throat requiring the ease of some cool liquid. However, given the proliferation of delicate wine glasses and the occasional bottle of overpriced, under-brewed lager with not a healthy looking pint glass in sight, this tickling feeling was somewhat suppressed. A quick glance at the menu confirmed that this was indeed, just as well.
Out of curiosity, I then headed on to the gift shop tucked away in a little corner under the stairs leading up to the circle seats, and amused myself by looking at the price tags of the miniature instruments locked away in a glass cabinet like a Stradivarius at Sotheby's. The last time I saw anything similar was in a shoe storefront display at Peninsula Plaza. The various other trinkets on sale were a brutal assault on my fiscal and engineering sensibilities, their assigned value being hugely incongruent with their simple nature and attendant low cost of manufacture. Ah, the wonders of gift shops and the patrons who keep them sustainable.
Enough of that.
Stepping into the hall itself, my inner geek eagerly partook of its design in an attempt to correlate it with my area of study, which occupied me in a somewhat meaningful manner until the support act Jhelisa started. A jazz-influenced singer with a powerful voice and some interesting takes on the genre, she and her tastefully minimalist band gave an engaging performance. At times though, yours truly was pre-occupied with identifying the features and subtleties of the hall acoustics, the beginnings of an occupational hazard. It was, nevertheless, a good start to the evenings musical proceedings.
Mavis Staples took to the stage with aplomb. Amidst the intense tremolo-drenched guitar work, a trio of backup vocals and the hypnotic grooves of the rhythm section, she preached to a rather lacklustre audience a strong sermon that made clear in no uncertain terms what she stood for and what her lifelong passion was.
In between songs she spoke of a time and place where segregation and discrimination ruled the day, and a recurrent theme was her affection for her beloved grandmother, whom I reckon was a strong guiding force in such a tumultuous period. She spoke of her time in the family band The Staples Singers, led by her father Pop Staples and of their travels with Dr Martin Luther King on his journey to spread his seminal message. She spoke not with a sense of bitterness, but with a sense of purpose and a good dose of humour.
Perhaps the definitive moment of the evening for me was when she recounted how, in defying a restaurant owner's request for them to leave the premises and in the face of impending police action, a group of them linked hands and sang a song which she then launched into, “We Shall Not Be Moved”. Though this song has been appropriated for various other causes of similar or less worthy note, her heartfelt rendition made it sound like it was purpose-written and it was certainly an excellent cap on a set-list of gritty blues-influenced spirituals and protest songs.
And a gracious front-lady she was, giving her backup singers lead duties as she backed away from the microphone and her guitarist prime stage time to dazzle with blistering fretwork as she took seat at the back, perhaps a concession to age as well but not without clapping along and shouting encouragement. However, at no point of time was it ever in question who was presiding over this court. Though the passage of time had taken its toll on her vocal range and timbre, there was no denying the power and intensity of her performance. She exuded an aura of charisma that only comes with decades spent on the road, borne out of a genuine love for her craft and true dedication to her cause. Absent were the vocal acrobatics that characterises most practitioners of a certain genre that bears little resemblance to its original namesake. Instead, with her earnest, earthy baritone she put the blues back in rhythm and blues, and the soul back in soul.
An evening of repair and recharge it certainly was, although there was still that little tickle at the back of my throat. That was easily resolved.
