Alexander Hacke & Danielle de Picciotto
Date: July 12, 2008 Of Gluttony and Feasting By the tenth straight day of Bluesfest, it might have been reasonable to expect that it would be hard for another act to truly stand out as something unique. However, I can honestly say that the final two performances that I took in at the festival were unlike anything that had preceded them. First up was the Sauce Boss, Bill Wharton. Wharton earned his stage name through his gimmick of cooking a large pot of gumbo while he performs swampy, electric blues. When I arrived, the Sauce Boss had taken his act off the Blacksheep Stage and was playing his way through the crowd with his two supporting players in tow. Back on stage, he was incredibly animated, whether through his expressive playing or his loud, passionate praise of the gumbo that he would work own during the breaks in the music. He would go on to serve the results of his cooking to the audience, although I unfortunately had to depart before he finished his lively set. The reason for my early exit was that I had to line up for my only festival experience in the indoor Barney Danson Theatre, where the husband and wife team of Alexander Hacke and Danielle de Picciotto were to perform a piece entitled Ship of Fools. I was a fan of Hacke from his work with the legendary Einstürzende Neubauten. Although I didn't know de Picciotto, a description of the two pairing up to create an audio/video experience based on Sebastian Brant's 1458 novel, Ship of Fools was far too intriguing to be missed. Hacke and de Picciotto took the stage in nautical attire, he settling in on electric guitar behind some electronic musical equipment, and she starting the projected visuals from a laptop and moving to a microphone. Hacke first explained that this was an abbreviated version of the performance. From what I understand, the set was reduced from eleven songs to seven, each covering a chapter in the book. In addition, the quoted intros that usually precede those songs were expunged, although de Picciotto did read a passage to kick off the the show. Each song conveyed a particular theme, with a wide-ranging span of musical styles used over the performance. The projected visuals also brought a different approach on each song, working with still images, animation, and video footage, while always reinforcing the theme. For the opening song, corresponding to the chapter "Of Greed," Hacke sang and played guitar over programmed beats, while advertizing images flashed. "Of Gluttony and Feasting" was represented by the traditional "Rye Whiskey," introduced with keyboard work from de Picciotto. She displayed a tenderly beautiful voice in a mostly-spoken piece of a protagonist defiantly questioning God. In a stark shift, Hacke ramped up the volume to extreme levels on "Of Ready Anger," pounding out sampled beats, while hunched over the digital equipment that he had angled toward the crowd. This was a passage of noise-as-music most evocative of Hacke's more famous work with Einstürzende Neubauten. A song visually prefaced with a note that dance was regarded in medieval times as being of diabolical origin was similarly loud, although, appropriately, more rhythmic and less abrasive. "Of Gamblers" saw de Picciotto sing again, to great effect, while the show concluded with Hacke back on guitar and vocals for the energetic "Blacklist."
Since I ended up skipping the final day of the eleven-day affair, my Bluesfest 2008 experience ended on a fascinating and thoroughly enjoyable note. Alexander Hacke and Danielle de Picciotto's performance showed me a new side of an artist who I already very much appreciated; and this small-scale event would have to rank as the most memorable of the mammoth festival. <--Prev (Ray Davies) | Next (Jon Lajoie)-->Return to Concert ListReturn to Main Page |