It’s been an unusually musical end to the year for me, at least in terms of going to concerts. I rather got out of the habit for a few years as a result of wretched time planning and an unwillingness (read inability) to stand up for a whole evening, but circumstances combined this autumn to present me with several opportunities that I couldn’t resist.
First up was the astonishing French counter-tenor Philippe Jaroussky who arrived, with his usual period ensemble, to play a sold-out, can’t squeeze anybody else in, concert in a tiny church high in the Jura on the border between France and Switzerland. Not necessarily where you’d expect to see a man who usually performs in serious concert halls around the globe, but he was clearly happy to be there and the audience was certainly delighted to see him. What a voice.
Next up were quirky Quebec gypsy jazz stylists The Lost Fingers, who played a gig in the tiny Haute-Savoie town of Faverges. I only found out about the concert three days beforehand, but tickets were reserved and the torrential rain braved on what was a filthy October night. It was well worth it, as they entertained the two hundred lucky spectators with a run through material from all three of their albums to date, punctuating things with hilarious introductions and displaying quite breath-taking dexterity and musicality as they took classics from the 1980s and since and gave them their peculiar jazz slant. It’s good to be able to report that they are a great bunch, too, cheerfully signing autographs and posing for photos and chatting to all and sundry after the show. I’m looking forward to the next time they’re in the area, and also to seeing whether they do manage to attack something seriously heavy – and I did discuss some ideas with Byron – on their next album.
Then things took a seriously heavy turn with the visit of Swedish metal legends Opeth to Lausanne. It was clear that it wasn’t going to be like their traditional concerts, as the latest album Heritage is distinctly proggy throughout and they’d warned that it would be clean vocals only, but they didn’t disappoint. They were monstrously heavy, even in the acoustic sections, and were clearly in a very good mood on-stage, swapping banter with the crowd and teasing the Swiss for being, well, Swiss. In particular Fredrik played a blinder in spite of repeated tuning problems. I should also pick out support band Pain Of Salvation for a bit of praise, as they were excellent too. Not often I enjoy a support band’s show as much as that.
And finally, for the moment, it was the visit of Belgian art-rockers dEUS to a small club in Neuchâtel. Conditions were dreadful getting there, which seems to be a common factor in my gig going, but it was worth it. It was a different ambience to Opeth, as Tom Barman isn’t one for lengthy introductions to songs, but it was a fantastic gig, with the whole band on form and all the classics rolled out for our enjoyment. The highlight, much as I anticipated, was the closing Little Arithmetics ending in a howl of feedback and merging into the monumental Bad Timing, still their finest moment and quite astonishingly powerful live. The motorway was closed on the way home and I had to weave through countless tiny villages in the pouring rain before getting back onto the motorway not far short of Lausanne, but I didn’t care. It had been a great evening.
