Yann Tiersen Live Review

Yann Tiersen Live Review, Sunday April 29th, King's Cross Scala

I had no idea what to expect from this gig. I knew of Yann through Dave, one of those obsessions that he has from time to time. I must admit that most of the songs he had played me previously had gone one ear and out of the other, with very little lodging in my grey matter. So, I thought, the composer of the Amelie theme and consipirator with the Divine Comedy would come up with some twee nonsense sung in French.

Wrong. The stage is set as if to confim my fears. A jet black accordion, two toy pianos and a violin join the usual bass, drums and guitars as we await (impatiently) for the arrival of the Gallic multi-instrumentalist. From the outset the noise of this tight band is tearing up the Scala, contorting with hordes of feedback and rolling basslines. My first thought is Mogwai being chased by Hope of the States...no bad thing and certainly very different to the songs I'd heard on record.

Two or three songs in and Tiersen takes up the violin. He doesn't just play the instrument, he thrashes it. Hairs flail from the bow as it is repeatedly sawn across the strings of the poor thing. The violin led tracks are, for me, the highlight of the evening. The noise is at times completely a-melodic and cacophonous, edging the crowd back half a step every time the bow is cut loose.

On the worded tracks Tiersen sings in a low, hushed tone perfectly suited to the French language, maybe in the mould of say, Serge Gainsbourg. However, I don't think these had the impact of the instrumentals. I thought they possesed a greater power, more immediacy and better sound than the 'songs'. We aren't treated to a great deal of toy piano or accordion action either, both limited to just one song at the back-end of the set. A great shame as both were immensely effective.

The major drawback of the set, and it is unfortunately quite a detrimental one, was that a vast majority of the songs were overlong. The same was true about the set itself, and the encore was almost completely unneccesary. A lot of the time, the indiscriminate wail of feedback or the crazed trashing of the violin began to grate long before the songs had run their course. The few tracks that were short were exactly the ones I felt needed more time to 'breathe' and be explored further. All this left me a bit disappointed and non-plussed. The rest of the crowd lapped it up, composed mostly of thick rimmed-spectacle wearers and fans of pullovers. The onset of the violing repeatedly left sections of the crowd in raptures and the silences that accompanied more tender passages were deafening.

I ended the gig feeling that maybe the five-piece setup wasn't the best way to hear these songs. And although I had been pleasantly suprised by the intensity of the performance, the length and similarity left me cold. Dave suggested that if Tiersen toured with an orchestral backing it could be well worth seeing, and I'd probably agree. For this performance I can only rate it 6/10. The best track 'The Courtier' one of the shorter violin pieces.