Shall I cry or rejoice when "smoke gets in your eyes"? Marc Ribot in Espinho (April 30 2019)
I'm a lucky guy. Or I'm just a guy who's been looking for luck. Last
night, starting my personal Labor Day celebrations I went to see a
Marc Ribot concert.
out of tune? really?
Marc Ribot is a guy from Newark, New Jersey, an industrial town on
the outskirts of New York that I've visited years ago. He is a guitarist,
singer, songwriter, jazz player and has political opinions about his native
America and the world. He is an activist, as we can hear in his last two albums of 2018: "YRU Still Here?" (Marc Ribot's Ceramic
Dog) and "Songs of Resistance: 1942-2018".
To be a lucky guy I had to make it. Attentive to cultural programming in Portugal, I know where I can see what interests me most. Marc Ribot live in Espinho Auditorium for €8? It's one we can not let go.
In fact, I was not sure what to expect. There was no indication that he came with a band and nothing was said about whether or not it was an electric concert. And it is true that I was somewhat apprehensive because sometimes his interpretations are quite abstract, cold and far from the public.
But it was not like that. Arrived into the auditorium I quickly realized that it would be a solo acoustic concert, because there were only microphones and no pedals and connections for amplifiers. Intimate, therefore. There was a microphone for the voice. After a short wait he appeared from the back of the stage, dark clothing with grey and white kind of sneakers, glasses on the tip of the nose, white hair pointing in every direction. A kind of guy that we usually see in any corner of a portuguese tavern drinking a “mini”.
Modest and discreet, he appeared with an acoustic guitar, very worn out by use and time and a piece of paper. He said good night and leaned over the instrument. All out of tune! Out of tune? It seems out of tune. Until he start playing.
immersed, intense
Marc Ribot's acoustic concert in Espinho, which was the first of his international tour (May 2 in Portalegre), was something special and ephemeral, like the sounds of a guitar echoing in space. It was something that we saw growing and transforming in front of us and then disappearing into the horizon, fadding in our memory. Ribot played the first chords and released the melody, often easily recognized, as "Smoke gets in your eyes" (m. Jerome Kern /l. Otto Harbach), which later depleted, improvised, incorporated new chords and melodies, many of them also known, that came back to deconstruct and finally reunited in the initial chords. Almost never looking at the guitar arm and strumming with fingers or with tab and/or fingers. (I would even say that he played some fado or Portuguese or Latin composition, which I can not identify).
incredible sounds that Marc Ribot tear out of this beautiful used guitar
Very discreet, said almost nothing, and thanked only for reminding him that he still knows how to play. I add modest. It seemed ephemeral to me because it was an acoustic concert, without paraphernalia. I hope someone demeaned me and had recorded it.
Marc Ribot returns to Portugal in August to perform "Songs of Resistance: 1942-2018" in the Gulbenkian Foundation. Let's see if I make my luck again.
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