J. Greaves & P. Blegvad /Paris/09/06

Bad news first, just before the concert I learned that the Art-Rock festival near Versailles (7&8 of July) with Soft Machine/The Wrong Object/ Forgas Band Phenomena has been cancelled. Especially hard fort ‘The Wrong Object’ :  second cancellation in a couple of months. Seems that Prog is not so well in France…

…the more important to support ‘Le Triton’ in the Parisian suburb ‘Les Lilas’ a club dedicated to the jazzier side of  Prog, home of ‘Magma’ and exiled Canterbury musicians and then some. The club has about a hundred seats, good acoustics and a nice bar/restaurant with a terrace just outside.

After having seen John Greaves and Peter Blegvad together with Chris Cutler in Carmeaux during the RIO festival where they didn’t got unfortunately much feed back I was quite curious to see them again especially for the announced ‘Kew Rhône part. ‘Le Triton’ was nearly full and as always as much musicians in the audience as on stage (BTW two members of ‘Guapo’ showed up for the second half of the concert) and a lot of regulars among them Aymeric Leroy who is member of the club direction.

At 21:00 John Greaves came on stage and announced to the audience that the first half of the first part of the concert was about to begin. (Being the John Greaves solo part) He sat down a the piano and started one of his classic songs ‘Swelling Valley’ (first recorded with The Lodge). For the second song ‘The Trouble With Happiness , title song of the same record he was joined by David Lewis on trumpet giving a discreet counterpoint to John’s piano playing and vocals followed by ‘The Song’ one of my favorite Greaves compositions. He was then joined by Jef Morin on guitar for two more songs and ending so the first half of the first part of the concert followed without interruption by the entry of Peter Blegvad beginning the second half of the first part of the concert (Being The Peter Blegvad solo part) Peter is a great entertainer and his pure presence and witty comments are just utterly funny. John switched to bass while Peter played guitar, playing  Peter’s songs among them ‘Accident , a medley of ‘L’Age D’or and ‘Earthly Powers’ and ‘In Hell’s despite’. On the last song Peter stopped the band, because he forgot the lyrics (has already happened in ‘Carmeaux’ not on the same song so) and asked John for helping him out  with the first verse. Would be quite embarrassing with other artists , but Peter is just so non-chalant he transforms situations like this into little stand-up-comedy shows. The response of the audience was great and so the first set of the concert ended. (‘Le Triton’ keeps the Jazz tradition of sets)

Now after a beer and some chats the second part of the concert started and the four musicians  were joined by Jeanne Added on vocals and cello. Peter introduced the ‘Kew Rhône’ concept to the audience  and the band started with  ‘Seven Scenes From The Painting’. Peter had prepared a slight show on his PC and displayed the details of the ‘song’ with the details of the cover( a little hard to describe if you don’t know the record, just buy it after having finished to read the review or even better read Chris review and then buy it) Jeanne Added is a gifted musician and her voice close to Lisa Hermann’s. The band followed with  ‘Kew Rhône’and ‘ Pipeline’ again illustrated  with the infamous pics from the inside cover, followed by ‘Catalogue Of Fifteen Objects & Their Titles’ being for the occasion simultaneously translated by Jeanne into French. The public just went crazy and even so the musicians were slightly under-rehearsed for such a complex music (BTW it was the first time that ‘Kew  Rhône’ was reproduced on stage) the concert was fantastic. The band came back for two encores and ended a great evening followed by some more beers on the terrace with the musicians.

PS Sylvie Hamon from the Prog Mag  ‘Traverses’(she took fantastic fotos of the RIO festival, check out the site) took photos (not hesitating risking her health by climbing on one of the wobbly chairs) which will be published soon on the ‘Traverses’ site I’ll post the link here  as soon as they are on the net.