Live DC: Jose Gonzalez @ 930 Club

June 17, 2008 by Randy  Send to a Friend

all photos: Anna Scialli

Ah, Sunday nights at the 9:30 Club. You know the crowds: eighteen year olds with mom and dad’s car keys and fake IDs going to shows that open obnoxiously early. Admittedly, I usually leave the show disappointed. That was not the case this past Sunday, where José González, an Argentinean-born singer/songwriter played with Twi the Humble Feather to a moderately crowed audience. The 9:30 club was transformed for the evening into a seated and sedate theatre, which is unique to this venue. Still, there was a warm and relaxed feel to the crowd and I could sense how excited we all were to see Jose Gonzalez play live.

The show started off with New York-based Twi the Humble Feather. The three-piece guitar group’s set was entitled “Music for Spaceships and Forests.” All three musicians were classically trained guitarists who mixed vocal harmonizing with arpeggios and carefully plucked harmonics. Each song in the set opened and ended with a swishing sound the artists made in unison with their mouths utilizing their voices as auxiliary instruments. Their sound could be described at times as monastic and contemplative and at other times cacophonous and opaque. Twi was a really unique group and they set the stage well for Jose Gonzalez to play.

José González’s set followed and was both musically and visually flawless. He started the show in Spartan fashion, walking out into a single, spotlighted chair. Throughout his performance, the lighting veiled González in darkness or backlit him so that he was a silhouette. The visual effect perfectly accentuated González’s haunting and ethereal brand of atmospheric songwriting. His sound was isolating and standoffish but equally inviting, mysterious and mesmerizing to the point where it goaded me to enter into it and kept me there. The precision with which he played the guitar had a quixotic storytelling quality and his vocals had an oftentimes-melancholy optimism—the final product: Gonzalez had total control over the emotional declination of the evening.

After the very popular “Heartbeats,” a song featured in an absolutely beautiful Sony commercial where bouncy balls tumble in slow motion down the steep streets of San Francisco, two accompanying musicians joined González to finish out his set. Throughout the evening, Gonzalez played a good balance of songs from his first and critically acclaimed album Veneer and his second and most recent album In Our Nature. Of note were “Lovestain” and “Killing For Love”, both of which sounded astonishing live. Gonzalez finished his encore set with epic song “Teardrop” which was so driving and was played so much gravitas that it did not seem the 9:30 club could hold in the sound.

Bottom-line: Jose Gonzalez puts on a fabulous show. If you get the opportunity to see him live do yourself a favor and go. I promise you that you will not be disappointed with the quality of performance that he delivers. Also, I recommend checking out the Sony Bravia commercial on YouTube and going to his website, www.jose-gonzalez.com, to watch his music videos. His videos are oh so bizarre but make you appreciate Jose Gonzalez as an artist and storyteller all the more.

 Send to a Friend