Last night
(thanks to my three lovely daughters who gave me gig vouchers for my birthday),
I went along to see Jon Hopkins in concert at the Bristol Beacon (formerly
Colston Hall). It was the first time I’d been there since the Beacon’s
extensive renovations. I’d seen Hopkins perform several years ago when he was
teamed up with King Creosote back (in 2011, I think) and again when they came to
the beautiful isle of Iona in 2012, when
they performed in the tiny library there (I was volunteering on the island with the Iona Community for two months
at the time). The seating capacity was probably just 35 and it was a sell-out
gig(!). It proved to be a memorable, entertaining concert – in part because
they’d spent the afternoon at the Argyll Hotel being plied with countless triple
gin-and-tonics (which continued right through the performance)!
Last
night’s concert was VERY different… Hopkins’ music has ‘moved on’ somewhat from
those days (understatement!) – including working with Brian Eno and Coldplay –
to become an acknowledged electronic artist and producer boasting an output (quoting
from the Beacon’s blurb) “that flows from rugged techno to transcendent choral
music, solo acoustic piano and psychedelic ambient, the Mercury Prize nominated
Immunity (2013) and the Grammy-nominated Singularity (2018), two intense,
ambitious albums of spiritually-minded techno and ambient tracks, were among
the decade’s most lauded electronic albums”.
Firstly, I
was probably the oldest person there. It was non-stop; high volume; big bass; wall
of sound; massive colour (lighting engineers seem to be the new gods);
enthusiastic, throbbing audience… and Hopkins on his own at the front
manipulating everything on his synthesizer keyboard/drum machine (or whatever
it is he uses!). I have to admit, it was the first such gig that I’d attended
(Hopkins has travelled a long, long way in the last 12 years or so – without me
following his journey). Being an old codger, I spent an awful of the time
wondering what the high volume was doing to the eardrums of the people standing
up (very) close to the amplifiers!!
Did I enjoy it? Well, yes, I absolutely
did… even though the ‘music’ was not my sort of thing. I found it something of
a mesmerising experience. Simon+Garfunkel it was not!!
PS: It was very good to see ‘Big Jeff’ (a
Bristol music icon who regularly attends over 300 gigs a year) in the ‘front
row’ of the audience… despite all his health problems after being badly burnt
in a domestic fire three years ago.
PPS: It was also lovely to meet up
briefly with Stu and Iris before the concert started (we’d all booked to see
Hopkins, completely oblivious that we’d all be attending)… they were standing,
while I was sitting(!) in a somewhat cramped seat on the ‘Lower Tier’ gallery.
Photo: Some ‘mash-up’ pics from last
night.
