Last night, for the first time in roughly 8 years, I saw Imogen Heap perform. The first time around was a bit after I Megaphone was released and she was the opening act for Rufus Wainwright, then touring with his eponymous debut. The crowd at 9:30 was there for Rufus, and they made that abundantly clear when most of them came in well after the time Immi went on stage. I, on the other hand, had been listening to Immi's first release over and over, having read about it on Ecto. There seemed to be one other guy in the audience familiar with her music, and the rest of the very small crowd mostly looked confused by this slender giantess with wacky clothes, teased-out hair, and glitter on her face. She stood alone at the center of the stage, playing her electric piano, and wailing her way through her songs. The hightlight of that evening for me was "Rake It In," which in its live incarnation, was truly terrifying -- during the bridge, the shrieks she produced were mindboggling, putting the studio version to shame and making it clear just how serious she was.
8 years later, she was back at the 9:30, this time as headliner. And thanks to her success, largely on soundtracks like Garden State and The OC, the folks of DC clearly know who Imogen Heap is...and they turned out in droves for this sold out show.
Yup. Still tall. Still got the glitter on her face. And the outfit was...um...how to describe? A Victorian Flamingo, I guess, with a laced-up bustier, huge dress, and piled-up hairdo featuring a mohawk of pink feathers. But instead of a solo performance at the electric piano, Imogen was surrounded by electronics and, for many numbers, a four-piece band featuring, amongst other things, a stand-up bass, electric guitar, drum kit, human beatbox, a xylophone (marimba? vibraphone? I couldn't see it well from where I stood), and even a flugelhorn at one point. In addition to the intstrumentation, there were large quantities of electronics, used for vocoding, looping, and other sorts of tasty distortion.
The set list comprised primarily songs from Speak For Yourself, though she also played "Let Go" from Details by Frou Frou and "Come Here Boy" from I Megaphone.
From Speak For Yourself we got:
- Headlock
- Goodnight and Go
- Have You Got It In You
- Clear the area
- The Walk
- Just For Now
- I Am In Love With You
- Closing In
- Hide and Seek
- The Moment I Said It
[this is good]
Posted by: vanderwal | 11/19/2006 at 06:40 PM
[this is good] I love Imogen. I'm so jealous.
Posted by: Stacy | 03/18/2007 at 09:37 AM