The past few years have been difficult for everyone in many different ways and it is still very challenging but in different ways. So in need of a lift and escape we’re off to a gig, our second since 2020 (my 3rd as I went to one without my partner) and a return to that splendid venue The Stables Milton Keynes.
We kicked off our evening with a visit to our usual pre-gig venue for food, the Portuguese chicken emporium. How things have changed, told of a 30 minute wait for a table we decided to wait. However I think that what’s happened is they’re now doing take away and seem more preoccupied with those than getting customers seated at the clearly empty tables. As it turned out it wasn’t 30 minutes. However we had to constantly remind them to bring us items from our order and whilst the food was on par with pre-pandemic they forgot to heat the dessert (it can be eaten cold).
We arrived at The Stables in good time although with recent building works in the area the road layout had changed. The Stables has fought hard to ensure the new houses can’t shut them down from noise complaints a campaign we supported. The venue is pre-existing so anyone buying there should be forewarned similar to the idiots in our village complaining about the church bells that have been there for centuries and will be long after they’ve departed this mortal coil!
Refreshments in hand we joined the queue for the doors to open and had a brief chat with the couple behind us which bizarrely was about death and so spend your money now!?! Once the doors opened we were able to secure seats in the second row for this sold out gig. Room 2 at the stables holds a small number and it was full so much so that the first half was a tad too warm.
It wasn’t long before Chrissy and Rick, who make up The Blackheart Orchestra, appear to enthusiastic applause. It’s the first night of their tour in support of their latest album Mesmeranto which is already over 2 years old but that’s the pandemic for you. In fact that was the first thing Chrissy addressed saying it was great to be back and that it was OK they’d had Covid, to which most of the room said they’d had it too, except for me and one other.
They kick off the first half with, I believe, a new song possibly entitled Night Circus, and at once I’m transported into that state of music induced calmness, relaxed and engaged. Following are 2 songs of their latest album Mesmeranto, “Drown Me Out” and “Ennikur”, the latter being the album opener and a hauntingly beautiful song.
There is a reason that they’re called “Orchestra” and it’s simply that they play many different instruments and sometimes at the same time so with the overlapping tonal structures, melodies and harmonies your mind believes it is listening to an orchestra. Instruments are swapped at regular intervals as are their positions on stage as they move effortlessly from one song to the next.
When they address us directly it is as friends and this is, I think, the reason they enjoy playing more intimate venues where they can interact with their friends ,the audience, and feel the love and enthusiasm for their music that provides an energy source to tap into. Chrissy mentions she’s forgotten how much her hair “attacks my face” and mentions hair colours and the inevitable hair cutting disasters of lock down.
“Sebastian” from “Diving For Roses” continues the set together with more songs from “Mesmeranto” including “Wolves” which imbues a more primal feeling into the mix, a song where you can’t help but howl at the end. Closing out the first half is, given the circumstances of the past few years, I feel the poignant song “Another Lifetime” which is how remembering previous gigs feels.
After replenishing our glasses we head to the merchandising desk to see what’s available and spot something that we think we can adapt to our needs. When I tell Chrissy that we intended to repurpose it she remarks that’s she’s apprehensive but I explain it’s all innocuous as we’re turning a lovely mauve tote bag into a peg bag as ours has broken. Chrissy laughs and says she’ll need to rebrand them!
Returning to our seats an usher is explaining that they’ve turned the air conditioning on, well it was certainly a bit steamy before. The BHO return to the stage and kick off with “The Sky and I” from an older album “Songs from a Satellite” and follow this with the glorious double-song “Hypnotise” from “Diving for Roses”. I say double-song because it feels as though it’s two parts, a lavish orchestral quality introduction which lasts for almost 3 minutes and includes overlapping guitar melodies rising, falling and swelling plucking at our aural sensitivities deftly before halting and switching into a slower pace for Chrissy’s vocals to mesmerize us. Her voice in this interlude evokes a siren call quality calling into our minds with enchantment. One of my favourite songs and not least because it was the first I ever heard from them right here at The Stables that began our “love affair” with their music.
Another new song follows and one they released for public consumption this very day together with an excellent video although, as Chrissy later relates, one where she got a bit too close, for many admirers comfort, to the drop at Birling Gap! The song is “Under the Headlights” and as Chrissy explained it’s a song about letting go of those anxieties that keep us awake at night and realising that although we may be small we are all part of something bigger and we matter. Chrissy’s voice is at once fragile yet powerful, the vocals luxorious all the while being perfectly complimented by Ricks guitar playing. The chorus is uplifting and in a live setting takes on a much more nuanced quality. Stunning.
However we’re broguth back to reality with a song written about the past futilities of war which are once again painfully evident today, when will we learn from our past mistakes? And that only by working together can we hope to survive. “Left to Right” from “Mesmeranto” was, tonight, sung with a new sadness and as Chrissy remarked it’s a song about the past that should not have new meaning.
We are treated to another new song as they can’t stop writing them! “Raise your Heart” before closing out with a couple of older songs including “Darling Africa” from “Diving for Roses”.
The usual round of leave the stage, wait a bit and return just didn’t happen as the raptuous applause and vocal urgings caused them to stop and just carry on and what a song to finish on. Rick borrows a bottle of water and drinks some until he’s happy with the sound it makes, apparently it’s a perfect beat for this track. “Hey Pluto” from “Songs from a Satellite” isn’t a song in the true sense in that there aren’t really lyrics more an overlap of sounds both vocal and instrumental, not forgetting the water bottle! It’s multi layered and ebbs and flows before reaching a crescendo atop a wave of sonic magnificence.
Through the pandemic the BHO have live streamed concerts from their living room, admirably free to all with donations welcome, and we attended these. As I told Chrissy they filled that gap in live music during difficult times where we couldn’t see friends and loved ones, the BHO Big Armchair Concerts felt like we were visiting friends. Another gig goer reminded Chrissy that she need not be nervous as we are all friends together here.
BHO have remarked in the past that most of their songs aren’t really uplifting and, whilst thematically they don’t appear to be, tonight even the bleaker ones seem to have been imbued with a new vigour. Whether this is because BHO are happy to be playing again to live audiences, or because we’ve all come through difficult times I’m not sure but in music all parts of life are mirrored and as Plato said “Music is a moral law. It gives soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and charm and gaiety to life and to everything.” and who better to provide it than The Blackheart Orchestra.
My Review Score : 10
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