EIF 2023 John Cale Festival Theatre 26th August Review
Photo Credit Madeline-McManus
John Cale was at the Festival Theatre Edinburgh tonight for a show that was both part of his current tour to promote his new album “Mercy”, but also as part of the Edinburgh International Festival and as you would expect for someone with a musical legacy spanning over 60 years of work, his fans were obviously not missing this show.
There is little that this review can say about the importance of John Cale in contemporary music as much has already been written about his life and work from his days as a co-founder of the hugely influencial group The Velvet Underground to present day, so I will skip all of that and concentrate on this show and the new album. As John Cale has never stopped moving forwards in his music, I hope that he would prefer this approach too.
Let’s start with the show then. At its core this was a very basic set up with John Cale on a single keyboard for most of the show, except for two songs where he switched to electric guitar. The band, Joey Maramba (bass), Dustin Boyer (guitar) and Alex Thomas (drums) are all outstanding musicians in their own right and this was evident in their individual and collective work with John Cale’s music tonight. Behind everyone was a large screen that had a different video for each song displayed upon it. Backing all of this apparently basic band/stage set up, was some obvious tech that was far from standard issue. Here John Cale was performing an art/visual experience every bit as much as he was performing a live music show.
It is really not possible to separate the individual components of this show as each one is a separate strand of a larger conceptual package. Every image on this screen had a reason for being there and was so often tied into either the mood of the music or the lyrics of the song. Again, at first glance this could all often be taken for avant-garde and psychedelic imagery, but as always with John Cale, the truth is in the details.
Musically John Cale is still pushing boundaries, doing the unexpected, and often challenging our very concepts of how a song should be constructed and performed. Tonight, this took us down pathways familiar and unfamiliar and everywhere you could hear glimpses of John Cale’s creativity that have influenced so many other musicians and bands over the years. For any new band out there trying to push the limits of their musical creativity, the truth is that so often John Cale will have been there already.
With a new album out, a lot of the songs in this show were obviously going to come from here and of course the title track “Mercy” was in the set list. There are some exceptional works on this album and one, “Moonstruck (Nico’s Song)” performed with images of Nico on screen was both powerful and emotional. Sometimes John Cale’s music can overshadow the words of his songs, but here we often find the true power of the work, and words from this song like the lines below are a wonderful use of language.
“Breathing words into an envelope
To be opened on your death”
And
“So afraid, of your own shadow,
Following close behind”
There were many highlights in this show but one of the most outstanding was John Cale’s complete de-construction and re-construction of a song that we all think that we know so well, “Heartbreak Hotel”. In John Cale’s “Heartbreak Hotel” new sounds and new emotions are present and his vocals certainly gave me the impression that over the years, John Cale has booked into Heartbreak Hotel a few times himself. Throughout this show, Joey Maramba had been exceptional on bass guitar, but here, using a double bass bow (or maybe a violin one) to play his guitar added an almost surreal sound to this unique interpretation of this song.
With a set that lasted some 90 minutes without pause (except for the encore), John Cale proved that even now in his 80s, both physically and creatively he has no plans to slow down at all.
Review by Tom King © 2023
www.artsreviewsedinburgh.com
There is little that this review can say about the importance of John Cale in contemporary music as much has already been written about his life and work from his days as a co-founder of the hugely influencial group The Velvet Underground to present day, so I will skip all of that and concentrate on this show and the new album. As John Cale has never stopped moving forwards in his music, I hope that he would prefer this approach too.
Let’s start with the show then. At its core this was a very basic set up with John Cale on a single keyboard for most of the show, except for two songs where he switched to electric guitar. The band, Joey Maramba (bass), Dustin Boyer (guitar) and Alex Thomas (drums) are all outstanding musicians in their own right and this was evident in their individual and collective work with John Cale’s music tonight. Behind everyone was a large screen that had a different video for each song displayed upon it. Backing all of this apparently basic band/stage set up, was some obvious tech that was far from standard issue. Here John Cale was performing an art/visual experience every bit as much as he was performing a live music show.
It is really not possible to separate the individual components of this show as each one is a separate strand of a larger conceptual package. Every image on this screen had a reason for being there and was so often tied into either the mood of the music or the lyrics of the song. Again, at first glance this could all often be taken for avant-garde and psychedelic imagery, but as always with John Cale, the truth is in the details.
Musically John Cale is still pushing boundaries, doing the unexpected, and often challenging our very concepts of how a song should be constructed and performed. Tonight, this took us down pathways familiar and unfamiliar and everywhere you could hear glimpses of John Cale’s creativity that have influenced so many other musicians and bands over the years. For any new band out there trying to push the limits of their musical creativity, the truth is that so often John Cale will have been there already.
With a new album out, a lot of the songs in this show were obviously going to come from here and of course the title track “Mercy” was in the set list. There are some exceptional works on this album and one, “Moonstruck (Nico’s Song)” performed with images of Nico on screen was both powerful and emotional. Sometimes John Cale’s music can overshadow the words of his songs, but here we often find the true power of the work, and words from this song like the lines below are a wonderful use of language.
“Breathing words into an envelope
To be opened on your death”
And
“So afraid, of your own shadow,
Following close behind”
There were many highlights in this show but one of the most outstanding was John Cale’s complete de-construction and re-construction of a song that we all think that we know so well, “Heartbreak Hotel”. In John Cale’s “Heartbreak Hotel” new sounds and new emotions are present and his vocals certainly gave me the impression that over the years, John Cale has booked into Heartbreak Hotel a few times himself. Throughout this show, Joey Maramba had been exceptional on bass guitar, but here, using a double bass bow (or maybe a violin one) to play his guitar added an almost surreal sound to this unique interpretation of this song.
With a set that lasted some 90 minutes without pause (except for the encore), John Cale proved that even now in his 80s, both physically and creatively he has no plans to slow down at all.
Review by Tom King © 2023
www.artsreviewsedinburgh.com