Concert Review - Gonzales

Gonzales
May 8th, 2008
La Tulipe, Montreal

Sometimes the best musical experiences are either the ones you don’t know what to expect or don’t even plan to attend. On this particular night, all of the above was true, making it even more special than I ever could have imagined.

I was asked to attend by someone at the label Arts & Crafts (Home of uber groups such as Feist, The Stills, Constantine etc) and after saying yes, it becomes increasingly difficult to change my mind and bail – not if I planned on maintaining the solid relationship I’ve established over the course of the last 18 months. Ok, perhaps my attendance was not that vital, nor should I assume my presence that important. I don’t want to sound like some kind of journalistic elitist, but sometimes that’s the extra motivation I need to get myself from A to B.

And boy am I glad I did indeed make it to B (otherwise known as La Tulipe).

I knew very little of this Gonzales except that he wasn’t indie star Jose Gonzales and that he produced a whole lot of Feist’s body of work. Both of these would have been enough to cause me to run and hide under the desk while my cell rang repeatedly inquiring as to my whereabouts as well as when I was planning on showing up (there’s that elitist attitude again). Earlier in the day though I received my copy of Gonzales’ upcoming release, Soft Power, in the mail so I was able to give myself an aural taste of what to expect… or so I thought.

The truth of the matter is that his musical genius is but a small part of what made this evening’s theatrics so special. And that is impressive considering Gonzales has established himself as a pre-eminent fixture in the non-mainstream-but-all-the-cool-kids-dig-it scene. Gonzales (whose real name is Jason Charles Beck) is one of those musical prodigies who thrive as much in front of the mic as he does behind it. He is a composer, a rapper, a jazz aficionado, a producer, but above all, he is a showman – someone with an uncanny, innate love of the stage and performing, together, with his band -Le Together Ensemble – the atmosphere was electric and the crowd was buzzing with anticipation of something they already knew and I could never have imagined.

“We never expected this kind of turnout.” I was told by my connection at A&C.

Then, almost on cue, the man himself made his way in front of the baby-grand piano set to the left of the stage amid an enthusiastic roar of approval from the mixed crowd. One of the benefits of having a body of work that spans several different genres is being introduced to numerous different genres of crowds. There were the I-pod generation young hipsters, the elder folk there to pay homage to his jazz triumphs and of course the indie kids that flock to wherever their indie friends go. This didn’t even include the batch of Feist fans that attend anything that has her name mentioned in relation to. All were eyeing each other in a non-threatening way as if to question how dare they show up to what they thought exclusive to their scene only. There was no hostility though, but the uneasiness of such a plethora of ages, although subtle, was present.

For the next two hours, we were treated to a man who knows just how enjoyable he is. His egomaniacal cockiness became a pleasure to witness and the crowd ate up every bit of theatrics that came with what I know understand to be a standard Gonzales performance:

Prior to his performance of “Shameless Eyes”, a collaboration with Feist, Gonzales proclaims, “You know Feist? Well I made her.”

During a sing-a-long with the crowd during another, he asked one girl if she knew his hit song. When she said no, he promptly added, “well fuck you” and moved on to the next adorning fan.

At one point Gonzales made the entire band leave because they didn’t know his songs well enough, only for them to return several songs later to coincide with a stellar rendition of the soon-to-be indie hit “Apology”, off his soon-to-be-released album. This was followed by a splendid version of the first track off the album, “working together” which sounds as cheesy as the title would suggest. However, cheesy in this case was fucking entertaining, complete with band members doing the ol’ “fall backwards and trust someone to catch you” shtick. It was like watching something from Broadway or that last song in Blazing Saddles”.

The encore consisted of, of all things, Easy Lover, Classic Phil Collins, and the crowd just lost it.

To know that watching these dramatics unfolding onstage was purely part of the act made it all the sweeter. All of the onstage theatrics and the mental abuse aimed toward both band and audience were easy to laugh at knowing that there was no truth behind the insults he hurled.

As I sat with Torquil from Montreal darlings The Stars, we both agreed that musicians come and go, but entertainers are a dying breed.

Check out Gonzales on tour: