Eno’s “Pure Scenius” at the Sydney Opera House
June 16th, 2009If you’ve seen my tweets, you know that I just got back from Australia to see Brian Eno play live as the finale of the Luminous Festival he curated. The trip was great and I’m sure I’ll write more about over the coming days, but I thought I’d jump to the heart of the matter and talk about the concert first.
The question I’ve been asked the most so far is “was it worth it to fly 40 hours to spend 48 hours in Sydney for a concert?”. Yes, it was absolutely worth it.
Like I’ve said, I’ve been waiting 20 years to see Brian Eno live in concert, and this show was worth it. However, this wasn’t a show for everyone – of all the live performances I’ve seen over the years, this was easily one of the least accessible. The evening wasn’t full of “songs” as much as musical “themes”. Eno would write short instructions or stylistic themes on a screen for the band to read and improvise from. These instructions included “slowly and warm, like blood”, “extremes of pitch, high and low” and “ikebana noise club”.
Although I didn’t bring a camera to the show for fear of being prevented from entering, some brave soul did and posted some video clips to YouTube. Three cheers for YouTube! Below, I’ve embedded three of gethen’s videos from YouTube and included my comments on each of the evening’s performances.
Pure Scenius: First Show
Let me begin by saying that while I was excited about the show – I was a little nervous too. After all, I had built up some pretty high expectations for this and there was a strong possibility that an improvised performance was going to disappoint. The beginning was a little bewildering: for quite a while it appeared that everyone was doing something, but I didn’t really hear much happening.
Then disparate sounds began to build from The Necks, Jon Hopkins and Eno. The first third of the show felt like they were trying to find their way a bit, and then they happened onto a beautiful and minimal theme that’s captured in the video above. This theme built into a wall of sound that Eno referred to as “Ikebana Noise Club”. The crowd’s excitement at the end of the show compelled Eno and friends to do an encore of a song called “Pink Moon”, which was absolutely not a Nick Drake cover.
Pure Scenius: Second Show
I have to admit, as much as I enjoyed pieces of the first performance, large chunks of it were pretty dense and abstract. While I certainly wasn’t expecting “Another Green World” performed live, most of the first show was a bit further out in left field than I had anticipated. But any hesitation I had felt was quickly dispatched by the second show in which Eno’s sound was much more apparent.
In the second performance there were moments that brought to mind Music for Airports as well as “Sparrowfall” from Music for Films. Eno wrote the instruction “Two Pianos” which created the video segment above, which was an emotionally bare piece that honestly choked me up a bit. The second performance was everything I had hoped for from the trip and more.
Pure Scenius: Third Show
As the third show began, I was still buzzing from the previous performance. If memory serves me correctly, certain themes from the first two shows were used again, such as “Ikebana Noise Club” and “Two Pianos”, but because of the improvisational nature of the evening – the themes sounded entirely different than earlier.
The show slowly built in density towards a full on jam session with the entire band contributing fully to a funky, electronic groove complete with Underworld’s Karl Hyde reciting a breathless and intense spoken word piece over top (similar to Underworld’s “Born Slippy” or “Cowgirl”). For an encore, they played “Pink Moon” again from the evening’s first performance.