She and I talked about Jose Gonzales's music one night not too long ago when we had a slumber party at her house and stayed up talking deep into the night. She had seen him play in New York many years ago when she lived there and loved him.... and so when I saw that tickets were on sale, and they were at the Majestic of all places, I bought them on the spot. And she loved him again tonight. And so did I. And I'd be remiss if I failed to mention Bedouine, this lovely singer who took the stage as an opener before Jose. Mesmerizing and mellow. Feels like something melting.
Jose was more electric, while being acoustic. He was an incredible one man show. How so much deep sound, an abundance of thoughtful lyrics, trance-inducing rhythm, and soul-bending crescendos emanated from a single person in the center of a beautifully adorned stage, I still can't quite comprehend. But I'm grateful for the experience. I only cried a little (okay, twice) as I sat there moved and beside myself. ;)
And he had very minimal lighting, mostly consisting of a lightningesque streak from time to time and spotlights that were sometimes blue. Sometimes white. Sometimes red. And there was smoke curling in them, which kept catching my eye, especially during the more trance-like rhythmic guitar sessions. They reminded me of times when I (stupidly) smoked cigarettes in my youth but took joy in watching my exhaled smoke curl in sunbeams. I have vivid content memories of watching that back in the day in college. It's a deeply good memory, even if toxic... literally.
You may recall I blogged about the encore at a recent Iron & Wine show leaving me (and everyone else in the crowd) wanting. But not the encore tonight. I didn't even miss a beat of it videoing it because I was certain it would be the encore since it wasn't played during the main set. Mikila looked over at me just before Jose came back out, and she said "It's going to be Heartbeats." And I agreed. And I readied my camera.
He referenced "the Knife," the original singer of this song, after he played it. But it sounded like he referenced the song as a metaphorical knife in that moment because he then followed it with what he called a love song, seemingly in an effort to try to give us an emotional reprieve after the beautiful knife of a song we'd just lived through. Magnificent.
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