Old Friends

Pink Martini, Royal Albert Hall, 13 October 2022

Tonight was the 7th time I saw Pink Martini live, and it's surprising I never wrote about them. It was probably ordinated then that for some reason some random memories of the first time I saw them popped in my head.

2007, Sala Palatului, Bucharest. I was a cameraman for that gig and did not know about Pink Martini other than all the local hip press was raving about them and about the fact they decided to include Bucharest on their tour. Tonight, when I saw them on stage, playing all the weird random instruments, I got reminded of how the sound techs for the Bucharest gig - used to 4-5 piece rock bands - were complaining about the difficulty of getting the sound right for this many people with this many instruments.

15 years, 7 gigs and many hours listening to their music later, seeing Pink Martini live is like seeing old friends. The music is just as good as it was back in 2007 when I became a stronger convert in those two hours than Saul of Tarsus on the road to Damascus. But the best thing about a Pink Martini gig - and this has been true for all of them - is the joy emanating from the stage, the lack of any separation between artists and audience and yeah, this idea that we're not however many people watching a gig - we're just a bunch of friends brought together by music.

They have a new gimmick now. They ask people to request songs at the interval, then they read the requests. Which does sound gimmicky, until you start hearing the stories. The one that has seen tens of Pink Martini gigs, the one that has dreamt of seeing one for years and it finally happened; the one who traveled across continents, the one who got cancer since last time, or the one that has gotten rid of it; the one who has a friend or relative that died and the one who got a new partner. Or a new child. The whole of life is contained in those weird pieces of paper that China reads, some of them written in lipstick.

And it's the first time I've seen them after the pandemic, which made the feeling of reunion all that much stronger. And the first time I saw miss Edna Vazquez, which I'm listening to at the moment. The latest recruit, and a real discovery!

The first words, 'Siempre queue te pregunto', the opening lyric of Quizas, were delivered from the very depths of her Latin-American soul, and it was a long way back to the light of the Royal Albert Hall. She also had the courage to take on 'Pana cand nu te iubeam', and did a solid job of it. I think Maria Tanase is ok, and Pana cand nu te iubeam is certainly not her best song, but hearing Romanian sung by a world famous American band at the Royal Albert Hall will move something in any Romanian soul, and I feel privileged to have witnessed that. Edna was certainly the MVP on the night, and her third moment, singing an ancient Maya song to open the encore, was also magic.

Not to take anything away from China. Fabulous as always, and her voice as good as always, with an extra layer of melancholy, probably from the pandemic. And overall, much higher density of Middle-Eastern songs, I thought. She sang in Turkish, Arabic, Persian, Hebrew, Greek and Croatian and I doubt there are many singers in the world that can cover all of that in one night.

So yeah, Pink Martini, where the music is fabulous, but it's only the background. Go for the music, stay for the friends. I'm already looking forward to the next one!

When I saw Meow Meow's gig at Royal Festival Hall in 2016 I asked Thomas what his favorite venue is. He said the Royal Albert Hall, which surprised me, because acoustically and in terms of layout and relationship with the Audience, I don't think the Albert is that great a venue. But yeah, it's spectacular, and you can't compete with the history, I suppose.

I last saw them at Le Grand Rex in Paris, and I think Le Grand Rex is the better venue. I saw Bob Dylan at RAH in 2015 and it's a funny twist of destiny that tomorrow I will see Bob Dylan at Le Grand Rex. Not entirely sure what I've done to deserve this but by Jove, I am enjoying it. So yeah, tonight was great! Catching an early train to Paris tomorrow.