Along to the Phoenix for Thursday evening. A chance to test a few factors. How long to get to the central city in the evening? How difficult to park? Were there charges? How far to cross the centre?
All easy peasy. The main consideration was that the car park closed unnervingly early at 11pm. No charges after 6pm.
Then to meet up in the bar before the show. Chatting enough that we had to be herded into the show.
A sort of extended front room set. Arts lab, Beckenham was the look. Probably 1970s, judging by the lampshades. Then it was Bowie tunes. A mixture of styles from the players known as Bowie Lounge.
The lyrics were unmistakeable, although some of the interpretations were quite different. It looped through Bowie eras, and didn't try too hard to tell a specific Bowie tale. Bowie used to use William S Burroughs influenced cut-ups to render some of his lyrics and there was a similar fractured approach to any story telling in this performance.
We also witnessed a stage edge scratchy analogue video installation and a Billy Name-esque photographer wandering throughout the performance, like an enigmatic reference to The Factory.
And did the audience like it? By the end they were dancing in the aisles and would probably have been on the stage as well.
I'll classify this first skirmish into my new area's local night life as successful, even with the eleven o'clock car park curfew. But, as someone else pointed out, it was a school night.
No comments:
Post a Comment