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Hurrah. Yet more world music, he sighed… |
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Wednesday, 18 June 2008 |
Bonomia concert at Civray, reviewed by David Blake
The city of Civray offers a series of sponsored artists’ residencies, during which dance, theatre or music groups can work on their art and polish their acts, normally culminating in a performance onstage in the purpose-built municipal theatre.
Such a culmination was the performance on June 14, by the rock/world music/jazz quartet Bonomia (named after a parasite). Supposedly we 50 in the audience (the theatre seats 380) were to be taken on a tour de force tour du monde by Manu Réau (vocals and guitar), Jo Malnoury (vocals and Chinese flute, oboe, saz – a three-stringed Turkish lute – and so on), P-Jul (percussion) and Laurent Lobonnat (vocals and fretted and fretless bass guitar). What we ended up on was a stroll around a well-known neighbourhood.
There were no songs. There were over-arranged and complex –
extremely well-played – set-pieces. There were accompaniments to
"texts" (oh how the French love their texts! – read what TV rock
presenter Ray Cokes has to say about chansons de texte
in Nick Rowswell’s interview in the June FN). There were flamboyant
instrumental solos and layers of vocal harmonies – some faltering. But
no songs.
And ironically, the high point of the concert came with the ‘surprise’ arrival onstage of Paris-based violiniste/fiddler
(that’s how he introduced himself to me) Raphaël Maillet, looking like
he’d just jumped down out of the boxcar and suddenly picked the band up
by the scruff of the neck and shaken it into – music.
Technical stuff? Well, the sound off Manu’s electro-acoustic guitar was
tight and tasty. Very solid but transparent percussion sounds from an
extremely good drummer. The bass lacked something in the lower
register, although Laurent's technique was very fine. When we could
hear Jo's various lutes, they sounded – interesting. The oboe was
magical and not enough featured. As I said, more work on the vocal
harmonies, boys. And perhaps fewer jokes between pieces, Manu. Resist
the red rubber nose…
And guys, if onstage smoke you must have, find a machine whose
fumes are less acrid. The lady journalist sat next to us coughed
throughout your gig, and I didn’t need the stink either.
It was perfectly obvious that many of the meagre audience were camp
followers – nothing wrong with that; you gotta have fans. But it’s the
standard problem with ‘contemporary’ French music – it won’t export
well. Bonomia will do tours of France, Belgium, Switzerland and maybe
some African countries, and that’ll be that. They’re too impacted, too
parochial for ‘world music’.
photos Dave Blake 2008
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