I saw James Blake tonight. I was feeling pretty lethargic going into it, as I really only love one song from the new album that I knew he wouldn't play (Forest Fire), and listening to his first two albums it struck me I find both of those incredibly hit-and-miss as well. And I just thought it would be an hour-and-a-half of either barely decipherable crooning over sparse piano or beats or the same phrase sung in the same intonation over and over and over and over. Now that happened a few times, and time feels interminable on those occasions, but the show greatly exceeded my expectations, thankfully.
Life Round Here was great early, Choose Me fucking rules, one of the very few tracks on Colour in Anything that I really dig. Was followed by Radio Silence, another one of those. Limit to Your Love I've long had a love-hate relationship with because it just feels like the bones of a song, but it was pretty great (the lighting helped). Love Me in Whatever Way is aggressively annoying but it soon gave way to I Hope My Life//Voyeur, which was fucking wicked. Voyeur of course is his only real banger, and it ruled. Great moment.
Modern Soul is a great song, I love the fucking shit out of those spacey piano notes. That was followed by Retrograde, which was awesome, then a song I didn't know - setlistfm tells me it was a cover of Joni Mitchell's Case of You? If so then I need to listen to her, the lyrics were enthralling. Quick encore break then The Wilhelm Scream, which was fantastic (and apparently a cover of a song his father wrote..?!) and had a great climax. He stuck out for one more song - haha fuck you Sydney - and let me tell you, this was one of the most amazing things I've seen at a gig.
He introduced it as a really old song he hadn't played in ages, but it's from his self-titled. Couldn't pick it, but it was Measurements. And he asked the entire crowd to be quiet so he could do a loop, and for three or four minutes he just sang the lyrics in slightly different ways, looping the vocal each time, before eventually playing synths along with it until the lights completely died and he bowed and walked off stage, with the vocal loops still playing. It was positively meditative and an absolutely stunning, beautiful moment. I was a bit annoyed at my friend leaving as I wanted to just stand there til it ended. Very, very nice.
