Yann Tiersen
support: Lonski and Classen
October 31
Bristol O2 Academy
By Alex Cater

The evening begins with Berliners Lonski and Classen, a two-piece made up of a guitarist and drummer who play garage rock one minute and the next sound like a stoned Radiohead with hymnal harmonies stolen straight out of a Fleet Foxes chorus. Highlights include: the singer’s German accent creeping into his English lyrics, swells of sc-fi distortion and for one song the drummer’s subtle use of timpani beaters.

Before Yann and band walk onto the stage at Bristol’s O2 Academy, I know very little about Tiersen. What I am expecting is to see endearing continental flavoured music played on accordion and violin. What I am presented with is European rock music that is not to my taste.

The six musicians making up the band are two drummers, a bassist, keyboard player, rhythm guitarist and Tiersen himself. Over the night he strums a mandolin, performs a violin solo, takes front man duties on lead guitar and vocals, twiddles with a synth and employs a plethora of effects pedals.

It’s a great knees-up of an opener, part barn dance, part rock song

After some preparatory twinkling from the synthesiser, the band jumps into their first song, working together effortlessly, the music filling the venue. The guy on keys sets them aside for a ukulele, the bassist bobs, the dual drummers play off each other and over the top of it Tiersen violently cuts ribbons of sound from a violin, taking the melody in surprising directions. It’s a great knees-up of an opener, part barn dance, part rock song, so it is unfortunate that subsequent tracks do not build upon this strong start. The next is marred in part by a synth sound effect, intended to provide a backdrop for the band’s playing, which is so discordant that it takes centre stage. The synthesiser commits similar offences throughout the set, at one point sounding totally out of place as it plays a siren. On more rock-influenced tracks, with Tiersen on guitar, the energy of the performers is not transmitted into the music and it remains hollow of real electricity.

At one point to appease an audience more familiar with his earlier work, a spotlight picks out the composer while his band leaves the stage for him to play a violin solo. It is adeptly executed yet I am oddly unmoved. Back rocking out with the band, Tiersen does some singing but of all the instruments in his repertoire it his voice with which he is least dexterous. There are moments when the whole band comes together, joyous epiphanies that hint at what could have been. Too often, though, these moments are undermined by the return of an uninspiring chorus or siren.

I imagine the new album and accompanying tour will be divisive; it will alienate old fans and win new ones. There is undoubtedly substance in his latest output, however much I cannot warm to it. It is perhaps simply a question of taste. Tiersen has approached this band in the same manner he would his accordion folk arrangements but rock music is its own form. With the band’s variety of quaint instruments and poignant sensibility, he is reaching for a rockier version of Badly Draw Boy’s album The Hour of Bewilderbeast. Played live however Tiersen's folk, rock and electronic effects do not compliment each other. All of which leads to two questions: “Is multi-instrumentalist just another way of saying jack of all trades?” and “What, if any, is the difference between a new musical direction and a vanity project?”

www.yanntiersen.fr
www.myspace.com/lonskiandclassen

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09 November 2010

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