Phoenix J has a very sweet and delicate voice but I really can't say too much about her cover songs as I've never been shy about saying I don't like covers very much. What says more than I can about her covers is that people quite enjoy them and more come as her show progresses. Quite a number of the people who come know Phoenix already and this says even more as it's one thing when people come to your show out of curiosity and it's very much a different thing when people come because they know what you do and want to hear more of it. So it was with Phoenix.
The show was intended to be entirely piano and that held up for almost all of it but that guitar jumped into her hands at the end of it. I liked that as I was thinking, ok, didn't plan this so let's see what happens. It was good or I wouldn't mention it. She was also sliding use of a looper in and out of it but if you're really good with one then people may not even know you're doing it. Only when they really consider it will it occur that, hey, one person doesn't have enough hands to do that! Her looper is all real, all live, and very smoothly done.
Phoenix used one of her signature songs as a closer last night and "Under the Milky Way" is a beautiful thing. It's 'lilting' to me in that the melody goes up and down more than is absolutely necessary to define its course. That gives the song a special touch and it's captivating. If you want to know why people keep coming back to her shows, there is a very good one.
The song brings back memories of the Milky Way from Sydney as it looks very different from the southern hemisphere. There was a scene in "Roots" when the Dad picks up his baby and holds her (?) over his head to say, "Behold the only thing greater than yourself."
That's how it was seeing the Milky Way from Australia which is very much "Under the Milky Way."
Voodoo Shilton is well-familiar with the Milky Way as another of his fields is astronomy. Yes, do remember that as it will be on the test.
Something I noticed from the show last night was that "Kon Tiki" seems to have made it to the long-term playlist and it's very cool to see these evolutions as things slide into the show. That also means others slide out but that's pretty much how evolution goes as the show still has to stop at the top of the hour. It really doesn't for this show but many times in SL it is important that you get the hell off the stage at the top of the hour.
The big moment in Voodoo's show was in something that came to him forty minutes before the show. When the sketch comes into your head, it's so much more than an itch, it's something that has to happen. He announced that it was half-baked or some such before he did it in the set but it didn't sound half-baked at all. You could feel an urgency in it from something that stirs freshly in his mind and this is a very subtle excitement but it's real. That's something any performer wants all the time, actually, but it's like first times for anything. Repeating it will never be the same but you try and Voodoo is one of the best for keeping that kind of excitement in his music as nothing ever sounds like it's just a recital.
My ol' Dad put me onto flamenco decades ago and I admired it tremendously but it wasn't something I wanted to do. Flamenco was something for the Wizards of the East which was very much another world. Voodoo started differently and was attracted to it with the result we are hearing now. I really don't know how much of his play is improvised but that's part of the genius in always making it 'live.' Every so often I'll hear something and think, hmm, I don't think that was part of the plan but he does it so smoothly it makes me smile and think, oh yeah, that's how you do it.
I get too gushy as I'm not so good at containing enthusiasm for things but that's uncomfortable for people if I make it feel like I'm trying to push them to Mount Olympus. All of the people I mention here are friends before they're gods but do feel free to worship them as gods as, wtf, they're pretty damn good.
The show was intended to be entirely piano and that held up for almost all of it but that guitar jumped into her hands at the end of it. I liked that as I was thinking, ok, didn't plan this so let's see what happens. It was good or I wouldn't mention it. She was also sliding use of a looper in and out of it but if you're really good with one then people may not even know you're doing it. Only when they really consider it will it occur that, hey, one person doesn't have enough hands to do that! Her looper is all real, all live, and very smoothly done.
Phoenix used one of her signature songs as a closer last night and "Under the Milky Way" is a beautiful thing. It's 'lilting' to me in that the melody goes up and down more than is absolutely necessary to define its course. That gives the song a special touch and it's captivating. If you want to know why people keep coming back to her shows, there is a very good one.
The song brings back memories of the Milky Way from Sydney as it looks very different from the southern hemisphere. There was a scene in "Roots" when the Dad picks up his baby and holds her (?) over his head to say, "Behold the only thing greater than yourself."
That's how it was seeing the Milky Way from Australia which is very much "Under the Milky Way."
Voodoo Shilton is well-familiar with the Milky Way as another of his fields is astronomy. Yes, do remember that as it will be on the test.
Something I noticed from the show last night was that "Kon Tiki" seems to have made it to the long-term playlist and it's very cool to see these evolutions as things slide into the show. That also means others slide out but that's pretty much how evolution goes as the show still has to stop at the top of the hour. It really doesn't for this show but many times in SL it is important that you get the hell off the stage at the top of the hour.
The big moment in Voodoo's show was in something that came to him forty minutes before the show. When the sketch comes into your head, it's so much more than an itch, it's something that has to happen. He announced that it was half-baked or some such before he did it in the set but it didn't sound half-baked at all. You could feel an urgency in it from something that stirs freshly in his mind and this is a very subtle excitement but it's real. That's something any performer wants all the time, actually, but it's like first times for anything. Repeating it will never be the same but you try and Voodoo is one of the best for keeping that kind of excitement in his music as nothing ever sounds like it's just a recital.
My ol' Dad put me onto flamenco decades ago and I admired it tremendously but it wasn't something I wanted to do. Flamenco was something for the Wizards of the East which was very much another world. Voodoo started differently and was attracted to it with the result we are hearing now. I really don't know how much of his play is improvised but that's part of the genius in always making it 'live.' Every so often I'll hear something and think, hmm, I don't think that was part of the plan but he does it so smoothly it makes me smile and think, oh yeah, that's how you do it.
I get too gushy as I'm not so good at containing enthusiasm for things but that's uncomfortable for people if I make it feel like I'm trying to push them to Mount Olympus. All of the people I mention here are friends before they're gods but do feel free to worship them as gods as, wtf, they're pretty damn good.
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