Jose Gonzalez delivers an intimate set at Moseley Folk Festival
Moseley Folk Festival 2008 review
Thursday 4th September 2008
Saturday had a much more rewarding start than the opening day. Vjay Kishore played some delicate yet powerful melodies and his voice, somewhat Tom Yorke like, lead his last song 'Freedom' from quiet beginnings to emotional heights softly encouraged by his modest guitar work. It is a shame he was followed by the local Ben Calvert, whose unimaginative songs were made intolerable by his droning accent-heavy voice. I'm all for accents showing through in singing but having the words “Broken family day saver” mooed at you for long enough drains enjoyment like rain on your day off.
After this painful experience the day took a turn for the better. Much better. An army swarmed the stage wearing everything they could find in the dressing up drawer and begin playing what would turn out to be the most unique music of the weekend. A Gruff and terrifying voice told Gothically entertaining tales over sporadic fits of jazz/country/folk/blues/world/I give up. So many influences can be identified with this band that time shouldn't be spent on trying to define them. The only way to understand their music is to move your feet to it and let the cultural hotpot swallow you entirely. 'Out of Babel' was particularly awe inspiring, them drawing on the Biblical reference to celebrate the difference in music, culture and language that makes Birmingham such a great city. What made this message more potent was the fact that the music was itself a microcosm of this multi layered society. Oh yeah, and they're called The Destroyers. Awesome.
On this high note John Smith took the stage and proceeded to blow me away. Intricately crafted songs that were not only heart breaking but technically astounding. Everyone could appreciate his take on Queens of the Stone Age's 'No One Knows' but it was songs like the tale 'Axe Mountain' told to a brooding, intense finger picked guitar climaxing when he leaned back and shouted to the sky "Grant me a weapon God of mine!". It stopped being a sunny afternoon at that point and Moseley Park became a bleak desert canvas on which John Smith painted tragic stories with tremendous skill. 'Winter' perfected the set, Smith lying the guitar flat on his lap to literally beat the melody out of his guitar, creating a percussive backing. This was folk at it's most dramatic.
Similarly inappropriate at a folk festival, like yesterday's Morcheeba, The Bees came up. It was getting dark and the crowd were getting merry and this was exactly what was needed. Upbeat and positive but with a mellow rock 'n' roll groove and sometimes ska bounce to them that made the crowd gather round and dance, unable to feel any impatience for the nights finale. After, the crowd were buzzing (pun intended, unfortunately) partly from The Bees performance and partly in eager anticipation of Jose 'That guy what did that song for the Sony advert' Gonzalez.
Silhouetted by two beams of white light Jose Gonzalez was an abstraction. An embodiment of the solitary man, his features barely discernible. With a small delay, no doubt because he was using nylon strings outdoors, he began his first song. Either everyone was as breathless as me or I was just so absorbed that all other noises were filtered out of my brain like so much Physics revision. Such was the intimacy of seeing such a rising star on such a humble, homely stage. It felt as though it was just me and him.
Making his changes in tuning sound as natural as anything, he played a set of new and old, all of which the crowd lapped up silently. Heartbeats, of course, made the crowd's collective ear prick up, but it was his latest cover, Massive Attack's 'Tear Drop' That gave the show its centrepiece. A tasteful reworking that came of beautifully live.
Saturday, overall, was a better day. It being the weekend there were a lot more people throughout the day and they were much more energetic and expressive in their enthusiasm for the bands. Also, I think not only was the line-up a bit more in tune for a folk festival, there was generally a higher calibre of performance.
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