Retired - Not Out: July 2023

Friday, 28 July 2023

Herbie Hancock - Barbican Hall, London

We're on the 16.12 to London, so we must be on the way to a gig - yes, we're off to see Herbie Hancock at the Barbican.

A quick taxi ride and we take a chance on an early dinner at the Barbican branch of Côte Brasserie:

In all the times we've been to concerts at the Barbican over the years, I've often wondered about trying a meal at Côte, but we've never actually made it until today.

We arrived without reservations at around 18.00 and the place was heaving - and noisy. We were seated quickly and efficiently - at a table for two barely large enough to accommodate the crockery, so we asked to switch to a larger one adjacent.

Our order was taken and we sat back to wait... ...which was hardly necessary. Our food (a burger and a "Poulet Breton") arrived SO quickly that we were both absolutely convinced that it must have been 'pinged' - there was no possible way for those two meals to have been cooked from fresh, plated and delivered to us in the time elapsed. However, in this interview executive chef for the Côte group, Steve Allen, claims that they don't use microwaves for cooking, which seems to imply that the dishes MUST have been cooked in advance and kept warm (warm being the operative word - the chicken was, but barely). The burger was horrendously overcooked (and served on a wooden board - what is this, 2005?). Additionally, the "gratin dauphinois potatoes" promised with the chicken were replaced by chips, with neither apology nor explanation; since we were on a tight schedule to get to our concert we let both issues slide. The two Chocolate Mousses that followed were fine.

So - in summary, crowded, noisy and with distinctly average food at inflated London prices. I was genuinely disappointed, as eateries in that area are relatively scarce, and I had hoped that we had found somewhere at which we might become regulars. Unfortunately the search continues.

Before the food arrived (but only just):

After:

Out, and across the road to the Barbican. Who doesn't love a bit of 60s brutalism?

Time for the obligatory selfie and a couple of shots of the stage, and we settled down to enjoy ourselves - or so we thought...

A few minutes before the band were due on stage, a tall individual with a man-bun took his place in the front row of the balcony – two rows ahead of us, in our direct line of sight. He was accompanied by a child (I thought a girl, Amanda insisted a boy with long hair); the gender was immaterial, the age was not. The child could not have been much more than SIX years old (cut off for general admission into the hall is FIVE); six years old – at a Herbie Hancock concert – starting at 19.30. Alarm bells started to ring.

Man-bun lifted child into seat. Child decided they wanted to stand – leaning against the balcony rail. Man-bun helped child to do that and then leaned forward himself, the better to talk to child (while the concert was in progress) – thereby further blocking the view of those behind. Child decided they wanted to sit. They did. Child decided they wanted to stand. They did - but now with their back to the balcony rail, staring back at all of us.

This continued for perhaps the first 15 minutes of the concert, at which point the third actor in this "parenthood as performance art" mise-en-scène arrived – mummy.

Did mummy slip quietly down the steps, into her first seat in the row, quickly kiss her child and then sit enjoying the music? Did she b*ll*cks. Some four steps up from the front row of the balcony, mummy threw her arms up theatrically, rushed forward and encouraged the child to be gathered into her embonpoint. Child sat on mummy's lap. Child decided to sit next to mummy. Child decided to stand next to mummy. During all of this, mummy ensured that everyone behind her could see how much she loved her child by continually hugging and kissing them.

Child pantomimed that they wanted the ice-cream that man-bun had brought in 20 minutes earlier. Man-bun pantomimed to enquire whether child wanted man-bun to remove lid of said ice-cream, but child pantomimed that no, they were quite capable of handling this themselves. Mummy and man-bun clinked their plastic glasses together, no doubt congratulating each other on their superior parenting skills.

During all of this, other audients sitting between us and this little drama were exchanging looks and constantly shifting in their seats to try to see over or around the action.

In a lifetime of concert-going, I don't think I have ever witnessed such appalling behaviour or such a lack of concern for other audience members – and that includes the time I watched The Kinks playing sometime after midnight at a Student Union Ball, accompanied by a drunken youth some six feet to my right who spent a good part of the gig loudly reassuring Ray Davies that "You've really got me Raymond, you've really got me!!"…

Readers – I'm not proud - a red mist descended – as did I. Squatting next to mummy I explained as politely as possible that those sitting behind her had not paid good money to watch her family picnic, and would she mind very much settling down, quietening down and letting the rest of us enjoy the remainder of the concert in peace. I don't think I've ever seen anyone look quite so shocked. I returned to my seat and adopted a thousand-yard stare, while mummy twisted in her seat and tried to locate me.

Within a few minutes, a youthful member of staff approached mummy and exchanged words. "I think you're being dobbed in", said Amanda. My response was unprintable. The staff member squatted by my seat and asked "Are you guys alright?". I explained what had happened. "Um – they're allowed to eat ice cream in here", came the response, as if that was the key component of my complaint. I reiterated my concerns and it became clear that the lad lacked both the authority or nous to actually do anything, and he withdrew.

So what happened next? Mummy did indeed settle down to some extent, after which the inevitable happened – the child's already limited attention span was exceeded in a way that no amount of cuddling from mummy could assuage, and mummy and child left – around 50 minutes into the gig, leaving man-bun to continue to shift back and forth in his seat until the final standing ovation, inconveniencing those behind him with every move.

And so - back to the concert. We'd seen Herbie once before, back in 2019, and tonight was in some ways a re-run of much of that gig. On this occasion, in place of Elena Pinderhughes on vocals and flute was the American trumpeter Terence Blanchard. We'd seen Blanchard before, playing with his own band at the Barbican as part of the 2010 London Jazz Festival, and this was a welcome second opportunity to see him in action - especially since he now spends a significant proportion of his time composing - including, to date, two operas.

The rest of tonight's band comprised Lionel Loueke on guitar, James Jenus on bass guitar and drumming prodigy Jaylen Petinaud ("He's only 25", exclaimed the 83-year-old Hancock as he introduced the band.)

I won't attempt to critique the music - any of the reviews listed at the bottom of this entry will give a good assessment of that, and in any case the events described above will almost certainly have affected my judgement. What I will say is that, for the second time in a month, my feelings could probably be boiled down to "I enjoyed that. I'm glad I came. I'm not certain that I would go to this much trouble to come to see him again."

Perhaps in contrast to the majority of the ecstatic crowd, I did feel that there were longeurs - which was ironic, given that some of these resulted from attempts to squeeze in (IMHO) too many short snippets from a recorded back-catalogue that stretches back more than 60 years. No matter - for me, if Hancock had done nothing more in his musical career than contribute to the Second Great Quintet of Miles Davis between 1964 and 1968, I would have thought his time on earth well spent.

The band wrapping up their final number - with Herbie on keytar:

And before we left - a quick snap of man-bun continuing to block peoples' views until the very end...

A swift exit, to find that - in contrast to our last visit - there wasn't a cab to be had anywhere near the Barbican. We walked briskly along Beech Street towards the Barbican tube station and then right onto Aldersgate Street, where we windmilled enthusiastically and managed to catch a ride back to St Pancras.

Provisions were picked up from Costa and Starbucks, and we made our way up to the platform level, where we sat people-watching and enjoying a late snack until our train at 23.35.

An uneventful journey home, made more comfortable by the kindly conductor in First Class who kept us stocked with tea and snacks.

Home at around 02.00 and bed by 02.15 - the rest of that day was very lazy indeed.

Post-Concert Reflection

As I later sat and reviewed the events of the evening (both on- and off-stage), it occurred to me that, having realised that I was not that bothered about seeing either Herbie or Branford Marsalis in concert again, the number of artists that could or would attract me to a large concert hall has dwindled significantly over the last fifteen years or so.

Reflecting on just those artists we had seen at the Barbican over the years, I came to the realisation that both Ahmad Jamal and Chick Corea had since died, and two strokes in 2018 had effectively ruled out the possibility of Keith Jarrett ever performing in public again.

We have tickets to see the 85-year-old Ron Carter at Cadogan Hall in November, after which there are probably only a couple of artists in the world that I would want to see and who could fill somewhere like the Barbican or Festival Hall. Unless or until some of the current middle-rankers up their game, or some new prodigy blazes onto the scene, our future gig-going may be limited to smaller halls and clubs. I can only hope that the audiences there know how to behave...

Reviews

Saturday, 22 July 2023

The Marriage of Figaro - Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, London

We're off to the opera!

My exposure to opera has been sporadic. When I was very young, Dad had a small number of famous operatic arias and other classical pieces on '78 records. Even at a young age, I could tell that some of the performances were 'special', but I knew little about them, and for many years contemporary music held a much greater attraction.

In the early 1970s my sister and I accompanied Dad (Mum was indisposed) and a number of pupils from his school to a performance of The Barber of Seville at the Coliseum in London. My own copy of the programme for that performance is buried deep in a box of ephemera in the loft, so this picture I lifted off the internet will have to suffice:

In the years that followed I had eventually and slowly added to my collection of operas on CD, as well as building up a not-insignificant collection of recordings of the BBC's Saturday night "Opera on Three", but for whatever reasons, had never suggested going to a live performance.

Finally, in 2018, during the planning of our second visit to Vienna, we discovered that, by coincidence, the Vienna State Opera would be performing "The Barber of Seville" while we were in town - and tickets were duly ordered. (See here for an account of that outing).

And so to today - our first visit to the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden. I already had the feeling that this would turn out to be either a one-off, to be ticked off my bucket-list, or the start of a new and (hopefully) long-standing relationship. As seen above, for our first visit I had suggested going to see "The Marriage of Figaro", which we had previously seen on TV on more than one occasion, and which was one of my first operatic CD acquisitions.

My late mother's 1940 copy of The Complete Opera Book by Gustav Kobbé told me that Mozart composed this opera in a month, and that the finale to the Second Act took him all of two days to write and that (fittingly, given my sparse exposure to live opera) the story of "The Marriage of Figaro" is a sequel to that of The Barber of Seville.

The good news was that when we booked our tickets, I was able to get central front row seats in the Donald Gordon Grand Tier (effectively, the first balcony) - some of the best in the House. The bad news was that I booked them for a Saturday night, meaning that we would not be able to get down to London and back in the same evening, as the last trains back to Leicester are (annoyingly) much earlier on Saturdays. Accordingly, we planned to drive down to Ealing and stay in a Premier Inn overnight, using the Queen Elizabeth Line to get in and out. In the event, this was an accidentally prescient plan, as the subsequently announced national rail strike meant that the QEL was one of very few operating that day.

A straightforward drive down, a quick rest and then ready to venture out:

As The Pointer Sisters so very nearly proclaimed: "We're so excited, and we just can't hide it...":

Down to Reception, where the constant drizzle outside persuaded us to ask them to get us a cab to Ealing Broadway Station.

An uneventful journey on the Queen Elizabeth Line to Tottenham Court Road, where we sheltered from the rain and killed time for a few minutes:

When we judged the time right to arrive for our reservation we hailed another cab to take us to Burleigh Street, and specifically, Joe Allen - about which I have written before - both here and here.

Our reserved table (in the upper dining room) was not quite ready for us, so we opted instead to sit at one of the tables in the (to my mind, usually more fun) lower level. This might have been a slight miscalulation on my part, as the place was MUCH busier than during previous visits, and we might well have enjoyed the peace and quiet upstairs rather more. No matter - what was done was done.

The boss enjoyed a bottle of Brooklyn Lager:

while I quaffed the most outrageously priced Coke I've had in a very long time - an old-fashioned glass filled with ice and perhaps, in total, four mouthfuls of Coke (which tasted watery) - all for the princely sum of £3.50 - come on Joe!

To eat, Amanda chose a hot smoked salmon fishcake with poached egg, caper & dill sauce and wilted baby spinach, while I opted for a crispy shrimp burger (just for a change), complete with Korean spiced slaw and fries:

To follow, I opted for "Baked vanilla cheesecake with strawberries", while Amanda selected "Chocolate chip cookie with vanilla ice cream":

It was still a fun visit, but uncomfortably noisy and a little crowded (probably with the pre-evening and post-matinee crowds), and there was a slight feeling that the shine had started to go off. Perhaps next time we go we'll aim to hit the mid-afternoon sweet spot when the place is less busy than a branch of KFC at pub chucking-out time...

Out, and a brisk five-minute walk north to Covent Garden and the Bow Street entrance to the Royal Opera House.

Since this was our first visit we took a few minutes to explore and to orient ourselves. As expected, our fellow audients sported a variety of outfits, from dinner suits and dickie bows (actually few and far between) to jeans and jumpers. Perhaps my favourite outfit of the evening was the traditional yellow kimono worn by a young (8-9?) Japanese girl - who was herself admiring the floaty, gauzy Western princess dresses on sale in the shop...

Up a fight of stairs, from which we captured this view of the entrance to the Paul Hamlyn Hall with its integral champagne bar:

and this entrance to the Dorfman Conservatory bar:

Last minute brushing-up of the plot:

and then through these doors to the Donald Gordon Grand Tier and our central front-row seats:

It is worth noting, in passing, that the ROH has perhaps the most relaxed approach to security that I have seen in a public venue for a very long time. As we entered the building there was the usual cursory non-invasive bag check, which I imagine most four-year-olds could defeat. Once we were inside there were no further checks - even to the extent that as we walked into the Donald Gordon Grand Tier there wasn't even any attempt to check our tickets, or even to check if we HAD tickets. Opera obviously attracts a less nefarious type of punter.

This will do very nicely:

Not a brilliant composite, but it gives a reasonable representation of our view:

Obligatory selfie:

The House lights were lowered and we settled back into out seats... ...and a figure in a dinner jacket strode out onto the stage in front of the curtain. "Don't worry", he reassured us, "nobody's ill!".

It transpired that, in addition to this being the last performance of this run, tonight also marked the retirement, after 54 years as a member of the Orchestra, of Principal Viola player Richard Peake, and we were invited to join the House in wishing him well.

Formalities over, we settled down for a genuinely wonderful performance.

As usual, I won't attempt a critique - the reviews below provide that. However, it very quickly became apparent that this was not to be a one-off visit but, hopefully, the first of many.

A significant number of curtain calls (our arms started to ache), including one for Richard Peake, and then it was all over.

Out, and (as could have been predicted on a drizzly Saturday night at theatre-chucking-out time) nary a cab in sight. Guided by our unerring sense of direction we walked swiftly along Bow street, Long Acre, Shaftesbury Avenue and Dean Street up to the Queen Elizabeth Line end of Tottenham Court Road station.

An uneventful return trip back to Ealing Broadway, and then another brisk walk through light drizzle back to the hotel, arriving at ~23.45, or (more importantly) - 15 minutes before the bar closed. A pint of lime and soda for yours truly, while A made the most of her non-driving status with a rare G&T:

Up and out the next morning. Checked out and the car packed, we strolled down to Ealing High Street and the local Pret a Manger for breakfast - your correspondent looking slightly less bright-eyed and bushy-tailed than his partner in crime:

As we sat and watched the world go by we were both struck by how busy the streets were for 09.30 on a Sunday morning. Moreover, a significant proportion of those out and about were carrying (or more accurately these days, pulling) suitcases. Since Ealing is not the most obvious destination for a holiday, we assumed that many, like us, were using it as a staging post - far enough from central London for accommodation to be noticeably cheaper, but close enough to make access to the centre quick and easy. The fact that the QEL also extends out to Heathrow no doubt also increases the attraction of the area for brief stopovers.

Back to the hotel to collect the car, and a straightforward run home.

Reviews

bachtrack

Seen and Heard International

Monday, 17 July 2023

As You Like It - Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon

We're off to Stratford to see "As you Like It":

Thanks to TripAdvisor we managed to get a really good deal at our favourite hotel, just across from the theatre, so we'll be spending the night:

This will do nicely:

A wander around the shops and then I started to get warning signs that my blood sugar was dropping, so into Starbucks for a drink and a blueberry muffin. I THINK the boss was just adjusting her sunglasses and not letting me know what she thought of me:

More wandering around, during which Amanda bought a dress (possibly to be worn on an outing later in the week). Back to the hotel to change, and then out to The Vintner for dinner:

While we waited for our food I was fascinated by the heels on the shoes of a woman sitting at the next table:

Lest anyone think that I ONLY eat burgers, I should point out that occasions such as this are almost the only times that I do eat them - so I make the most of it:

A much more sophisticated "Filleted plaice with caper beurre noisette, seasonal vegetables & new potatoes" for Amanda:

Yes, we both had room for dessert:

A short walk to the theatre, where we enjoyed a cup of Earl Grey in the Swan Bar:

Through the theatre shop, where this item from my wishlist was on sale:

and into the auditorium:

Obligatory selfie:

And so to the play itself:

Since we started our theatre going some years ago we have seen gender-blind productions, colour-blind productions, modern-day productions, futuristic productions and some productions that permed three out of the four.

We've seen gender-blind productions in which pronouns were changed to accommodate the casting, and others where they weren't.

We've even seen a production of Julius Caesar where Brutus, Cassius and Octavius were played by females as females – but the changes made to the script were often nonsensical (“Brutus, she is an honourable man").

I understand, but am rarely swayed by, the justifications for making these changes (Amanda is much more forgiving). Imagine, then, my surprise at just how much I enjoyed this "age-blind" production of "As You Like it".

The fundamental conceit is that what we are watching is a "play within a play" – a group of actors are seen in a modern day rehearsal room, "re-producing" (from memory) their performance of the play from 45 years earlier. The average age of most of the cast is well north of 65, and Oliver Cotton (as Jaques) is 79.

The production begins with the house lights up, and actors in modern day rehearsal clothes enter, chatting amongst themselves and with the audience. A prologue (perhaps more accurately described here as a breach of the fourth wall) by Michael Bertenshaw (Oliver) explains that, for a variety of reasons (including death) six of the original actors could not be present for this reunion. Their roles would be played by the four much younger actors seen on stage (sometimes with scripts in hand) and (in the case of Adam, who would have been 114) by an old coat – sometimes laid reverentially over a rehearsal chair and sometimes folded up and held by one of the other actors.

The action begins, the house lights dim imperceptibly slowly and we're off.

As noted so often before, I lack the skills and experience to offer an informed review of the production, but suffice it to say that I thoroughly enjoyed it and there were a number of genuine "laugh out loud" moments. Much of my enjoyment stemmed from the joy of watching seasoned professionals, comfortable and confident in their own abilities, having fun while doing full justice to the play. At 73, Geraldine James as Rosalind was phenomenal – still luminously beautiful while bringing a lifetime of experience to the role. This was her RSC debut (shame!) and the first time I had ever seen her in real life – I was genuinely shocked at how tiny she is.

It was also great to see Maureen Beattie as Celia and a real treat also to see Malcolm Sinclair as Orlando. Twenty-odd years ago the playwright and dramatist Marcy Kahan began writing a quintet of radio plays in which she imagined that a number of intriguing gaps in the memoirs of Noel Coward might be explained by his being engaged as either a sleuth or a spy at various points in his life. The plays have been broadcast by the BBC, and I have recordings of them - all feature a brilliant performance by Sinclair as Coward.

After the interval, the second half began as informally as the first, and I was able to grab these illicit (and therefore somewhat blurred) shots.

Maureen Beattie and Geraldine James:

A more general shot of the company, with Maureen Beattie seen talking to Malcolm Sinclair while he reverentially holds Adam (that is to say, the old coat):

And then it was all over. A wonderfully entertaining evening, and a genuine pity that the house was not full - I suspect that the RSC had engaged in some re-allocation of seats, as the Upper Balcony was entirely empty on the night we were there.

A walk of a few steps across the road to the hotel, and both grateful that we weren't faced with the journey home.

Breakfast the next morning at our favourite table, with the RST visible through the window:

My seat at this table offers a perfect view of the road outside and, at that time of day, the constant stream of young boys on their way to school. How fitting that the night before, Jaques's speech about the Seven Ages of Man had included the lines:

Then, the whining schoolboy with his satchel

And shining morning face, creeping like snail

Unwillingly to school.

Checked out, the car packed and left in the hotel car-park and time for another stroll around the town: