Jose Gonzalez at World Cafe Live

October 2nd, 2007

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The Canals kicked off their concert season tonight with Jose Gonzalez at the World Cafe Live. It was a good, if slightly bizarre, performance.

James Blackshaw warmed up the crowd with some ambient, instrumental 12-string guitar tunes. The highlight of the act was his introduction, where he revealed his English accent. The guitar was nice to listen to over dinner, but Benjy noted that when the only dancing your music elicits is a quick wince or shoulder jerk here and there, you’re probably not cut out to be a main act.

After a 15 or so minute break, Jose walked on stage. Here’s where it started to get weird. There was a group of guys standing behind us who had acted pretty normal up to this point. They were well-dressed, in their early twenties. Stereotypical “bros” - you could tell they were the frat-boy type, but they seemed harmless enough. Suddenly they started screaming and barking at Jose. It was so over the top that we were sure they were making fun of him. They just couldn’t contain themselves. They started giggling and saying things like “THAT’S JOSE. RIGHT THERE. ON THE STAGE. RIGHT IN FRONT OF US. HOOOOLY SHIT.” One of them commented that he was “all business,” but it seemed like he was just in a bit of shock about his raucous reception.

As the performance went on, the bros got more and more awkward. Whenever a song ended, they would whoop and holler and scream out song names. Then Jose would start playing, and everyone would get completely silent and we could hear them whispering the lyrics under their breaths. Just a very weird scene. It was a whole subculture we had no idea existed, like DMB fans who took a wrong turn and ended up somewhere totally un-fratty.

Jose was good, though. His music doesn’t exactly translate into a standing-room-only performance, but he’s still a great musician. Alex had seen him on Letterman a few nights ago, and he said that Gonzalez’s guitar playing was much more impressive in person. By the end of the show I was a little hungry for a melody or two, since most of his songs consist of a cool but repetitive guitar riff with some mumbled lyrics behind it. I realized that I enjoy Gonzalez the most on a brisk, summer morning, when I don’t have to give him my full attention. The highlight of the show was Teardrop, which he closed the set with. I recognized it from Newton Faulkner’s cover, and never realized that he was covering Massive Attack (even though the original is the theme song from House). If there were any other bloggers in the audience, they’re probably writing about the idiot who kept going on about Newton Faulkner during Teardrop for some reason. Overall it was a good first concert of the schoolyear, but it also got me pretty excited for a change of scene this Sunday when Voxtrot and the 1990s come to the basement of First Unitarian Church.