Gig: Brian Eno & Baltic Sea Philharmonic at Southbank Centre, London
London’s Southbank Centre had some very special guests on Monday, 30th October: Brian Eno with conductor Kristjan Järvi and the Baltic Sea Philharmonic orchestra, and guitarist Leo Abrahams and actor Peter Serafinowicz.
For about an hour and a half that evening, the Royal Festival Hall was graced with mesmerizing music, beginning just a few minutes after the scheduled 6:30 PM start. The show began with Eno’s twenty-minute-long piece, “The Ship,” from his 2016 album under the same title, continuing with more from that album: “Fickle Sun (i),” “Fickle Sun (ii) The Hour is Thin,” and “Fickle Sun (iii) I’m Set Free.” The performance evolved into a stunning theatrical production with compelling, deeply moving music and, at one point, dramatic flashing bright orange lights. Later on, there was bright strobe lighting that illuminated the entire hall like a kaleidoscope as the concert came to a close. The lighting was a whole other addition to the already amazing concert!
There were personal notes from Eno throughout the show, and about halfway through, Eno apologised for sounding like a croaky ‘old man’ because of his cold, telling us audience members to imagine him much younger, instead, accompanied by a witty grin on his face. Despite the change in his voice, he didn’t let his illness sway him from delivering a strong vocal performance.
An older piece by Eno, “By This River,” procured an element of nostalgia in the crowd with more people, most likely longtime ‘old school’ fans, smiling and quietly dancing in their chairs. A few years off from its fiftieth anniversary, the classic has remained a favourite, despite its age. They also played “Who Gives A Thought” from his The Ship album and the almost twenty-year-old “And Then So Clear.”
The encore made light of the situation in Gaza; Eno opened up the conversation by stating there had been 4,000 children killed in Gaza in the Israel-Hamas crisis. There was a moment of silence and heaviness in the room as Eno continued his story while becoming emotional onstage. He asked the audience to politically demonstrate if they weren’t and made a comment about the state of the government, with the majority of the crowd clapping in agreement.
Soon after, they began playing Eno’s “Bone Bomb,” a song inspired by two different stories about the Israell-Palestine conflict almost twenty years ago; one about a Palestinian girl who was a suicide bomber, and another about an Israeli surgeon who had to remove bits of shrapnel from the victims’ bodies. It struck Eno so much that he wanted to make a song about it. Quite a dark topic, but a fitting one for a night of such intense music. Eno and the orchestra continued to narrate the musical story of the war, drawing parallels with the current war, performing “Making Gardens Out of Silence” and “There Were Bells,” which provoked a sombre emotionality in the crowd. The concert ended soon after with a roaring applause as the performers made their final bows.
The evening was like being out at sea in the middle of a music storm with all of us aboard the ship as it rose up and down between the waves of music. It was unlike any concert I’d been to. The woman next to me even chimed in at the end, saying she ‘could’ve had another hour of that!’ An unforgettable night. I’m hoping Brian Eno will return to Southbank Centre in the future.
