Dag 1321: Världen är allt

My Dad collected me from work at 17:00 and we set off for the M62 for the journey to Manchester. The traffic wasn’t too bad although an accident on the opposite carriageway had caused many miles of tailbacks.

We soon found the G-Mex carpark where the Bridgewater Hall website had recommended we should park. It stated that we should take the tunnel out of the carpark where we would find a lift that would take us up to just outside the Hall. We did this and saw that just outside the lift door were some stairs leading down to an area of water with a fountain in the middle and a nice looking bar called the pitcher and Piano next to the water. SO we went down the stairs and saw that if we hadn’t taken the lift that is were we would have come out anyway.

After some very nice food and a couple of drinks we headed back up the stairs and into the foyer. The building looked very new and I had heard it had fantastic acoustics. I soon spotted the t-shirt stall and spent a bit of time deliberating whether to get a white or a green t-shirt. I ended up choosing the green one even though I knew I would be told it was horrible when I got home (which is exactly what happened). They also had black t-shirts, but I already knew I was banned from buying black ones. I also bought a tour programme (which has a hard cover and a cd on the back cover). And they were both given to me in a tour plastic bag – very nice.

So, £40 lighter, we saw we still had plenty of time before the show was due to start so we went up to the circle bar for a swift half and sat by the window looking out over Manchester. There was a Hilton hotel near the hall that looked amazing.

Just before 20:00 went to our seats. They were in the left hand side circle and I had bought them from someone on eBay as when I tried to book them from either ticketmaster or the Bridgewater hall website only gallery tickets were available. So I was a bit surprised to see that the whole of the row in front of me was empty along with half of the row in front of that. Some of the people around me moved forward once they saw that no one was about to turn up for these seats but we stayed put as we had a good enough view where we were.

The layout of the hall was very impressive and it looked like it had been designed primarily for the acoustics. Behind the stage I could see a collection of massive shiny new organ pipes.

After 5 minutes or so the lights came down, the band walked onto the stage and started playing Wonderful World from the Nine Horse album Snow Bourne Sorrow.

The set list was the same as at the Stockholm concert and was as follows:

Wonderful World
It'll Never Happen Again
World Citizen
The Day the Earth Stole Heaven
Ride
Playground Martyrs/Transit
Fire in the Forest/Ghosts
Snow Borne Sorrow
Mother & Child
Waterfront
Atom & Cell
Sugar Fuel
Brilliant Trees/Fight the Bullfight/Nostalgia/Fight the Bullfight
The Librarian
(1st encore)
Every Colour You Are/River Man
(2nd encore)
Wanderlust

The stage was very large, open and roomy and the lack of a speaker stack at either side gave it a very different appearance from most concerts I’ve been too. Behind the stage was a backdrop with graphics projected onto it that changed subtly as the show went on. It was a great effect and must have taken someone ages to put together.

The sound quality was absolutely excellent, as expected, and, for me, the highlights of the show were Ride, Mother and Child, Waterfront (which made the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end) and Fight the Bullfight. The only disappointment (and it was only a slight disappointment) was that the arrangement of Every Colour You Are had been changed and had a more minimal drum part. I always thought that the strong drum pattern made this song, but the drums on Fight The Bullfight, however, were fantastic and more than made up for this.

The band consisted of:
David Sylvian – vocals, acoustic and electric guitars
Steve Jansen – drums and occasional keyboards
Keith Lowe – Bass
Takuma Watanebe – grand piano and keyboards
There was a flute and (possibly) oboe player for about half of the songs, but I didn’t catch his name.

David Sylvian sat on a stool throughout and didn’t have a strap on either of his guitars. His voice was just as good as on his recordings and he had white shoes.
Steve Jansen has a rather strange looking drum kit with an electric bass pedal instead of an actual bass drum. Despite what I mentioned above, the drumming was excellent and varied from fairly loose swing styles through to very tight minimal drumming and the rock drumming style of Fight The Bullfight (if that is what style that was).
Keith Lowe sported a leather kilt and had 2 electric basses (one of which looked like a Danelectro Longhorn) and 1 electric double bass.
Takuma Watanebe played what must have been a concert grand piano (it looked huge) and had a short keyboard and an Apple MacBook Pro next to him and a larger keyboard on top of the piano (unfortunately I was too far away to spot what these keyboards were. His piano playing was excellent throughout and incredible of Mother and Child.

encore

The lighting was pretty dark throughout so I wasn’t able to get any decent pictures, even after I had managed to work out how to disable the flash.

Of the songs I didn’t already know; It'll Never Happen Again is a cover of a Tim Hardin song, Playground Martyrs is a track from Steve Jensen’s new album Slope and Transit is a song from Christian Fennesz. I think that Sugar Fuel is a track by a group called Ready Made, though I haven’t been able to find out much about this track at all.

There was a standing ovation at the end and after both encores.

after the show

So overall it was a great evening. There was no support and the concert lasted from 20:00 to 22:00 with no breaks. We thought we would be able to get home in good time, but unfortunately the queue for the carpark ticket machine was massive and it took half an hour to finally get to the front. As the queue was so big when we got there I felt sure there must not have been any more machines especially as more and more people tuned up and joined the queue behind us. As we drove round the carpark I saw another machine at the other end of the carpark with no one anywhere near it, so I guess they could do with better signposting to the locations of the pay stations.