Audio By Carbonatix
Hope Sandoval & The Warm Inventions Better than:
Sons of Hermann Hall
October 19, 2009
Hope gets what Hope wants.
And, four songs into Hope her Sons of Hermann Hall performance with the Warm Inventions, Hope Sandoval had had enough of some of the relatively (by Dallas standards) quiet conversations going on among the crowd as she sang.
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In a short rant that ended with her telling the offenders that they could talk all they wanted on the other side of the exit door, she reduced the crowd of approximately 200 to total silence for the remainder of her hypnotic set.
Certainly none of the males that dominated the crowd held it against her?
With a voice that seems at once a bit cartoonish and yet totally
seductive, Sandoval and her band performed a set of songs taken largely from
her excellent new release Through the Devil Softly and a few from
2001’s Bavarian Fruit Bread.
Dressed in an elegant (very) little black
dress and boots, Hope played haunting harmonica and xylophone, but
mostly sang, her hand on her hip, moving little, lit by the images from
the film clips that were projected on the screen behind her.
That
simple video system of two vintage 16mm projectors really enhanced the
performance, with short vintage film clips and odd images that tied
beautifully to the song being performed. After finishing the set of a little
more than an hour, she disappeared with crowd demanding more.
A two-song encore was provided before she slipped out into the darkness for good.
Opening the show (and serving as most of the members of The Warm Invention) was the Dirt Blue Gene. They played a set that veered between the trance-y blues and twangy pub rock, but these skill sets were best used backing Hope.
Critic’s Notebook
Personal highlight: Set highlights were numerous, but, for me, the two
encore songs–the achingly beautiful “Satellite” and the stretched-out
set closer (don’t recall what song it was) with Colm Ó Cíosóig weaving
a hypnotic percussive rhythm that reminded me of his performance in My
Bloody Valentine.
Sorry about: Not getting the set list after chatting up Colm and totally fanning out by getting Hope to sign a poster.
