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...


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