A recording of the November 2104 concert at Sage, Gateshead of John Grant's collaboration and peformance with the Royal Northern Sinfonia was made available and streamed yesterday evening on Facebook.
The Royal Northern Sinfonia is Britain's only permanent professional chamber orchestra and are based at Sage in Gateshead. They are known for their collaborations and adaptability to explore different musical styles and genres. John Grant is a North American singer / songwriter who is now enjoying a celebrated solo career after being a member of US Rock group, The Czars. His music is hard to pinpoint exactly as it crosses a few genres, but is mostly a folk and rock crossover.
On stage was the Nortrhern Sinfonia, conducted by Christopher George, Grant, and Grant's own rhythm section of keyboards / piano, bass, drums and guitar. Quite interestingly all of whom, except the pianist, were Icelandic. The mix of songs and sounds ranged from alternative rock, Indie rock, electronic rock, synth pop, soft rock, but all the time were very similar inasmuch as they all had a similar 'feel' and pace to them. Mostly ballads, and mostly "easy-listening". The one thing that gave these songs a little more than just the easy-listening monicker was that some of them used very adult language / profanities in them. No point listening to this if you are prudish or offended by swear words.
I didn't get or wasn't able to find the titles to all the songs, and one of the set was sung as a duet with Fiona Brice, who also did all the orchestral scoring for the songs.
The concert lasted 90 minutes without interval, and Grant sang one encore. On this recording Grant did not appear to be very charismatic or have any real stage presence, which I found very surprising. Maybe live this would not have been an issue; but when one is already coping with a totally false atmosphere with no live vibe to it at all, then a little more animation from the front-man would have been appreciated.
I had never heard of John Grant before, and I am extremely happy to have been able to have seen this concert online and learn about him and his music. I enjoyed the style of the songs, but the lyrics didn't particularly resonate with me. The Royal Northern Sinfonia were not new to me, but it was certainly the first time I had seen them perform. Living in Manchester we are really rather spoilt with The Halle for mainstream and Manchester Camerata filling the role of the Northern Sinfonia here.
Verdict: a professionally produced, enjoyable, slightly-left-of-centre, concert.
Reviewer - Chris Benchley
on - 12/6/20
No comments:
Post a Comment