And Pluck Your Strings

James Blake’s live show comes with near-impossible expectations. He doesn’t play the type of music that is easy to transfer onto a live setting, and moreover he doesn’t play the type of music to which a crowd can give him any real immediate feedback, apart from nodding along slowly and clapping in between tracks. Indeed last night at the Prince Bandroom, I wasn’t quite sure whether the crowd as a whole had loved or hated his set until I heard snippets of conversation from people leaving including phrases such as “out of this world” and “most incredible show ever”.

More than anything my uncertainty as to the overall feelings towards the show were probably indicative of the fact that the crowd, for the better part of the night, had simply been in a trance, held captive by three men (but one in particular), unable to move or think properly without breaking the spell that James Blake had cast on an entire sold out Prince Bandroom crowd.