{"id":1207,"date":"2019-06-10T08:04:50","date_gmt":"2019-06-10T15:04:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spacefold.com\/colin\/blog\/?p=1207"},"modified":"2020-09-02T11:34:21","modified_gmt":"2020-09-02T18:34:21","slug":"imogen-heap-the-masonic-sf","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spacefold.com\/colin\/blog\/2019\/06\/10\/imogen-heap-the-masonic-sf\/","title":{"rendered":"Imogen Heap, The Masonic, SF"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Imogen Heap<\/a> was in fine voice at The Masonic<\/a> in San Francisco this weekend, but I have to deduct one point and give the show 9\/10 for unexpected reasons.
First, here’s what didn’t bother me at all:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Technical Glitches – it’s a high-tech Heap show, there are always a couple of glitches, and they are always fun to see her gracefully negotiate them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Technical monologues – Heap is a music tech nerd and this is what she does. Allowing her ebullient personality free rein to enthusiastically talking about her MiMu gloves and blockchain is part and parcel of a Heap concert.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Set List – Strictly speaking this was a joint Frou Frou \/ Heap concert and so including music from Guy Sigsworth<\/a>‘s solo album is to be expected. Not to my taste, however your mileage may vary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As I said, Imogen was in fine voice, with her fantastic range and tone in full display, except for a difficult first song (“Guitar Song”) where the vocal EQ seemed off and she was croaky and out of tune in some places, all of which might be blamed on the sound\/monitoring folks getting their act together, along with perhaps missing out on that important cup of tea prior to going on stage (I’m guessing). Unfortunate, but a one-off: all the other songs were great vocally.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So why deduct a point?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1. Criminal under-use of the amazing Zoe Keating<\/a>. Also, for the first half of the show I honestly couldn’t hear her cello contributions. Second half was better, someone turned her up in the mix. But still… more cello! More Zoe!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2. I couldn’t tell where the music was coming from! I am 100% confident this was not miming to backing tapes – that is not what I am talking about. What we were hearing was all being generated on stage, I’m sure. The problem is that this did not feel like a performance by a band of contributing musicians. Apart from the drummer (who rose to the challenge) it was almost impossible to determine who was playing what. I’m sure the woman playing the keytar was contributing in important ways but honestly, I couldn’t tell. Was she holding down the bass? Maybe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I couldn’t tell what the guitarist was doing or contributing, apart from the odd moment. (Yes, good job on the Jeff Beck part on Say Goodnight and Go, by the way. Doesn’t make up for the rest of the concert, sorry.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I think that Imogen’s mastery of the MiMu gloves are partly to blame. She effortlessly bounces samples and vocal treatments and loops around the aural space and looks like she’s merely dancing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I think that when you’ve got a group of musicians on stage, however many there are, each member should be distinctively audible and contributing, in synergy, and this didn’t happen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I’ve seen Imogen in concert twice before and never experienced this kind of disconnect between the band and the music, so I think it is a bug, not a feature, of this specific production.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That said, it was a good concert, and I have tons of respect for Imogen Heap and her creative journey. In the past I’ve flown to another city to see her live, and would do so again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Imogen Heap does not owe us anything more, but she did hint about perhaps working on a new album for next year so I’m looking forward to that, if it happens.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Imogen Heap was in fine voice at The Masonic in San Francisco this weekend, but I have to deduct one point and give the show 9\/10 for unexpected reasons.First, here’s what didn’t bother me at all: Technical Glitches – it’s a high-tech Heap show, there are always a couple of glitches, and they are always […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1207","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews","post-preview"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/spacefold.com\/colin\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1207","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/spacefold.com\/colin\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/spacefold.com\/colin\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spacefold.com\/colin\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spacefold.com\/colin\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1207"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/spacefold.com\/colin\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1207\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/spacefold.com\/colin\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1207"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spacefold.com\/colin\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1207"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spacefold.com\/colin\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1207"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}