Lesson From Jose Gonzalez: Engage Your Audience
Last night I went to see Jose Gonzalez play live. Jose, like the Swedish Chef, is from Sweden; you may recognise his music from such TV commercials as the Sony Bravia one, with the coloured balls bouncing down steep San Francisco streets. Yep, those are real balls - it’s totally worth watching the Making Of video for the ad.
Although I have one of his albums, I wasn’t convinced Jose’s sound would work in a live environment; after all, it’s just one man and his guitar. But I was wrong; it gave me goosebumps (the music, not being wrong).
His performance stood out all the more after seeing the second opening group that preceded him. I don’t even know who they were, because they didn’t greet the audience or introduce themselves, and the only communication they attempted was mumbling to each other during songs. Perhaps they were shy, but it only came across as surliness. I’ve seen better people skills from Axl Rose.
Jose, on the other hand, did introduce himself, explained where he was from, praised how beautiful our town was (I know, they all do that, but it seemed sincere), remembered to thank the opening bands and us for coming and then did a big encore. Haunting voice. Very good.
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Thursday, January 10th, 2008 at 9:10 am
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