20 October 2009
Photos: Anika
Coming, as she does, with so much diva-style baggage attached, it was with a degree of hesitancy that I dared take my seat after the interval, awaiting the arrival of Anja Plaschg. The Steinway grand had in the interim been adorned with white lilies, the smoke machine was blowing, the incense burning, the lights dimmed and a tiny shy girl with back-combed hair emerged from behind the curtain and glided over to the piano....
Whilst not wishing to delay anyone's gratification in any way, there is also the requirement of addressing Jon Hopkins' performance which came before the interval; it was confusing.
Anyone who had been at, say, the Ninja Tune-hosted Stealth nights at what was the Blue Note in Hoxton Square would have seen scratched-up broken beat mixing, sometimes house-y sometimes jungletastic beats being split there and then - but that was 1995 (or was it '96?). So it was hard to tell why this guy was doing essentially the same thing so many years later, only with the addition of all his dramatic posturing, which isn't, of course, actually needed when twisting or sliding a few dials or controls on a console. Confusing, in a WTF way. Although luckily JH appears to count Natalie Imbruglia - wearing a short red dress to help her remain inconspicuous - amongst his friends, so that's alright then.
Now where were we....
It seemed that she was in fact in a good mood from the first, with a tiny quarter-smile as she took her seat suggesting all was well, and it was. The performance was compelling and she was in fine voice, her playing was dynamic, the venue and simple but dramatic staging suited her well, and any concerns about moody unpredictability were baseless.
Anja was a curious creature to see; it took at least four songs before she even looked at the audience, and when she acknowledged applause it was generally with an all but inaudible murmur, in marked contrast to her singing, which rose to an abandoned all-out wail, an outpouring of the tortured emotions behind her songs. Poor old mum, one may suspect, but lucky us.
There was also a contrast between her apparent awkwardness and her surprising bolt away from the piano to head off for a lap around the front of the stalls, howling as she ran, arriving back at the piano in perfect time to coordinate with the laptop-based accompaniment; clearly some kind of pre-planned spontaneous moment, the realisation of which slightly spoilt the effect.
So, a glowing performance, but how much of the moodiness is for effect is hard to gauge - next time I want to see her in a bad mood.
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