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Live Review
by SashaS
3-7-2002
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| Manu Chao's '... esperanza' |
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Live: Manu Chao
Brixton Academy, London
Tuesday, July 2, 2002
Manu Chao create Rio-type mood in weedy Brixton…
Fresh from, and no doubt about it, triumphant appearance at the Glasto Festi, Manu Chao calls in London for a show that brought carnival atmo to Brixton! (Wo)Man, it was so good it went beyond orgasmic. The show ruled all our senses, filling them up with a widescreen experience! In a word – they turned the Academy into a – dancerium! En masse!
Signs all over the balcony walls request “Please remain seated during the performance” and it reads like a lunatic’s demand. The balcony floor vibrations were reaching 4 on the Richter scale at times and the reason is that you simply can’t resist these beats freely floating between rock-blues-WorldMusic-reggae-folk-pop-rai… Lyrics are sung in three languages and the ones most don’t understand are predictably about the same old bulls**t songwriters have always grappled with.
There is a song about ‘Barcelona’, there is another one entitled ‘Mr Bobby’ (no, not ‘Blobby’), some political observations and one with refrain that sounded like ‘Matzo-ball-ah! (Perhaps I was too high in the gods…) It matters not, this is a celebration of life, tragedy, death! All its complexity, trivia, minutiae… The sound surging from the stage is full, red-blooded, fruity, which is to be expected from a nine-strong crew with a guitarist who solos the way you’ve not heard in your life. Then, a bassist who resembles a tattooed Sumo-wrestler with a mohican leads this lot’s motley appearance…
Former member of Mano Negra, another punk-reggae-rock crossover band, fronts Manu Chao. The freewheeling Spanish singer/songwriter fronts his band with such aplomb that even emo-rockers feel emotionless when faced with (t)his passion. It is no surprise that this fusion of Western, Latin and North African influences into a loose, idiomatic, contagious and ultra entertaining aural opiate high on energy (usually), has sold millions of albums: his Euro-breakthrough was ‘Clandestino’ a few years back, the success confirmed with last year’s ‘proxima estacion: esperanza’. (‘Next Station... Hope’ is how the title translates.)
Their encores last half-an-hour but no exhaustion sets in… I think of a number and it is a PIN to über-joy.
SashaS
19-2-2002
Manu Chao’s album ‘proximo estacion: esperanza’ is available now on Virgin
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