She & Him  | |
| Leonard Cohen | |
| Gary Louris | |
| STARS & MIRACLE FORTRESS | |
| Josh Rouse | |
| Born Ruffians & Caribou | |
| Bruce Springsteen & The E-Street Band | |
| The Bicycles | |
| The Police | |
| Edwin McCain & Low Stars |
Imogen Heap November 11, 2006 Reviewed by Jason Shaffner Transparent grand piano dressed with curling vines and flowers, xylophone and marimba beside the drum kit; one glance at the stage was enough to signal we were in store for a strange set. We were not disappointed. Imogen Heap is best known for her solo track “Hide and Seek,” which was featured on the television series The O.C. and in several popular downtempo compilation sets. As one-half of the group Frou Frou, she also gained recognition for “Let Go,” which appears in the film Garden State. She visited the Avalon Ballroom in Boston on November 11, 2006, touring in support of Speak for Yourself. As she entered the stage, the first thing I noticed was her hair, which had been teased into a two-foot bouffant and dressed with large pink flowers. At the time, the audience was still reeling from the solo performance of beatbox virtuoso Kid Beyond. Heap introduced him (pre-teasing, she wore a white top hat), and after ensuring the audience was familiar with the concept of a digital looping device, Kid Beyond announced that he was a beatboxer. He promised to start out slow, and if we liked what he was doing, then he would get more complex. Most in the audience clearly had no idea what to expect. Illustrating each instrument with his microphone-free hand, Kid Beyond provided the audience a bass drum, a snare, a harmonica, and scratching turntables. Once the audience gave its approval, he dove into an incredible cover of Portishead’s “Wandering Star.” Before the audience’s eyes he built the layers of sound, using a foot pedal to mark the start and stop points of each loop. For each track, he needed thirty seconds to weave five or six looped components into a tune. Although one man stood on stage, with eyes closed one could imagine a band pursing lips into trumpets, rapping drumsticks on snares, and plucking steel from the frets. Next, he built trance in layers, and encouraged the crowd to move in accordance. But the crowd was not ready; the room had been rendered mute by awe of the unexpected. Twenty minutes later, Imogen Heap moved through the audience toward the stage. In her wry, but difficult to hear, chit-chat, Heap noted that some issues with the microphones had marred her performance in Philadelphia the prior night. Other than missing some of her accented banter, however, the audience in Boston was fortunate to hear every word as she gave a rousing defense of Speak for Yourself. She performed much of the show alone, aided only by keyboards and a digital looping machine of her own. Sailing through “Have You Got It In You,” “Just For Now,” “Let Go,” “I Am In Love With You,” and “Goodnight and Go,” the crowd remained oddly placid, as if they were hanging on every word. Halfway through the show, Heap noted that her debut album, “i Megaphone,” was scheduled for re-release in the United States on November 14. In a light-hearted, conversational tone, she recounted that the title was an anagram of her name and that she had written most of the songs when she was only sixteen. Kid Beyond made a return appearance to serve as the rhythm section on “Headlock” and “Daylight Robbery.” Heap strutted to the front of the stage and unleashed her impassioned lyrics atop the driving beatbox. It was a peculiar sight, the tall, gorgeous singer spinning and dancing at the front of the stage while all the background music came from the shorter man behind her. Two sublimely talented voices doing very different things, fusing to profound effect. Opener Levi Weaver, following an uneven solo performance, which culminated in an ear-splitting looped distortion, also joined Heap for these upbeat tracks, but he did not seem to add much; when he left the stage during “Headlock” to replace his guitar, I barely noticed a difference. From the start of the show, I had little doubt which track Heap would reserve for her encore. “Hide and Seek” is an unusual track, one dependent on the concept of the voice as an instrument. The album version features a beautiful harmony of at least two Imogen Heaps; in concert the harmony seemed grander, three or four layers of the same silky voice singing the same sad lyrics. Manipulating her words on the keyboard slung at her waist, Heap poured her soul into the one track everyone seemed to know. It was a superb conclusion to an excellent show, one I sincerely hope to see again next time she’s in town. |  |
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