Hope Sandoval – The Forum

Well you could either write a book or say very little about Hope Sandoval’s first ever Melbourne concert and the undercurrents that made it the almost bizarre experience that it became.

Anyone who had done their homework would have known that Hope Sandoval does not “perform”. She stands almost motionless in close to darkness and she sings. That’s not “performing” but there wasn’t anyone at the concert who would have turned up expecting her to do cartwheels.

So she stood inertly in the gloom and sang. When she sang, she sang with such clarity and such an extraordinary tone and texture that it was almost other-wordly. You can scarcely believe that it was live, so perfect was her singing. Her voice is a most remarkable instrument and any element of ‘show’ tacked onto her singing would have simply been unnecessary and ultimately pointless. I, for one, applaud the way in which she completely defies any of the normal platitudes of performance. There isn’t many artists who could or should try that and she is one of that very few.

However things did go calamitously wrong.

Five songs into the concert, which up until that point had been nothing short of entrancing, as she sang the line “ Is that the devil in your face” from the song Blue Bird she touched her face almost as if she had been slapped by an invisible hand, paused briefly and then marched off stage. Her band ground to a halt (not that they were moving with any great impetus on this gentle, quiet song anyway) and they left also, obviously completely confused by her departure. Drummer and Hope’s collaborator Colm O’Ciosoig muttered something into the microphone about a “technical glitch” and exited also.

Then for at least twenty minutes we stood in confusion. The “technical hitch” seemed to be of a most unusual type because in that time not one crew member appeared anywhere on stage to rectify the ‘problem’. It was obvious to most of us that a fuse had been blown but it wasn’t located in any part of the equipment.

Then without any further explanation of announcement Hope and the band returned to the stage. She murmured “sorry” and started into Trouble, the most accessible song from their Through The Devil Slowly album. Her vocal was again simply extraordinary.

They played another dreamscape song before playing the amazing For The Rest Of Your Life. This song, built around a loopy, discordant bass signature grew and growled like a caged beast and concluded in a cacophony of angry sound. It was quite brilliant.

What then followed was another walk-off, which could possibly have been taken as a pre-encore false finish except it was only ten or so minutes after the previous twenty minute break and no-one knew whether to walk out themselves or call for an encore.

After another inordinate amount of time they returned, played Satellite which ironically includes the lyrics Don’t play me for a fool you say/ Happiness is your hearts content/ Count your blessings/ Count your blessings on your way down.

At the conclusion to this song she whispered “Thank you, goodnight” just to ensure we understood that this wasn’t another walk off and we were free to leave unimpeded by the thought that perhaps there was another return to the stage in the offing.

So….given that the tickets weren’t all that expensive (and yes I happily paid for mine) and given that we half knew what to expect, should we be outraged? Or should be just be strangely excited that we were able to witness one of music’s more unusual artists give substance to her reputation? Is she disturbed or is she a diva? Does it matter?

Should some poor schmuck have come out on stage to announce during the unscheduled intermission that either a/ “We have a technical problem that we are working hard to fix and we will re-start the show as soon as possible” (clearly a lie but one we would have probably accepted in good humour) or b/ “We have an emotional problem with a singer is a dead set fruitcake and who seems to be losing the battle with the voices in her head. We have no idea what’s likely to happen next” (this being closer to the truth but kind of endearing all the same).

Either approach would have worked for me and to be honest the latter would have been a really cool moment in my concert going history. I’ll just pretend someone did make that announcement.  Maybe it was the same person who made the announcement prior to the show that anyone taking photos would be shot on sight. This was observed by most people with the result that the internet was spared people uploading 6000 images themselves with stupid “look at me, I have friends” expressions. I did however manage to sneak in the attached image of the stage show.

I dunno, I didn’t leave all that disappointed simply because I got to hear Hope sing which everyone should do once in their lives (but most wont) and I got to be present at a world class meltdown, which kind of had that reprehensible car crash appeal.

It was interesting.