abel selacoe

 i was out to see ludovico einaudi last week and was very taken by his support, abel selaocoe. i'm not going to lie, i was taken by the idea of chilling out to some mellow classical music but that absolutely wasn't what we got. selaocoe had plundered his whole toybox and presented a dazzling array of styles - classical english, gypsy, folk, west african, mongolian, who knows! and didn't sing in english! it was spellbinding. if i was picky i'd say i didn't like his efforts at crowd involvement much as it took away from his playing, and he relied a bit too much on open string playing for percussion in the pieces he played for me. but that'd be hard nitpicking. on the basis of this i'm off to see him in a solo show later in the year, i see from his repertoire he's doing some samuel coleridge-taylor, which i'm really looking forward to, as i've never heard any of him played live since i discovered him on a graveyard ramble back when i was a londonist

einaudi? einaudi was lovely. he started with just him on piano which was what i was expecting but he really picked up a gear when he got his musicians on in the middle segment. i wasn't expecting an autoharp! then to finish a medley of crowdpleasing favourites. the venue was rammed - i'm not fabulous with crowds and this was the biggest venue i've been in outside a football stadium -  and they loved it. very, very different mix than the usual classical music attendees!