CORNELIUS + THE GENTLE PEOPLE
London Royal Festival Hall 6th May 2002


This show was part of a full day of events at the Ether festival, showcasing experimental music and various collaborations between music and visuals. Tonight is eclectic in the extreme. I arrived too late to catch Looper doing their Peacock Johnson routine, taking my seat during guest DJs/ MCs the Siren Suite's venue-clearing mix of classical music and high camp announcements.
Things get worse, as the Gentle People seem to have mutated from a passable Pizzicato 5 homage into a fully fledged variety show dance troupe. Rarely have I seen anything as bad as this, people were doubled up laughing at them. Daft props, silly costumes and some truly shoddy dancing helped to distract from the music. As suspected it was in the same easy-listening/house vein as Pizzicato 5 and the like, and with the exception of the catchy 'Gentle People are Love', it was a lot more forgettable than the efforts of their dance troupe.

After all these mediocre support slots, I was hoping Cornelius could at least make the evening worthwhile. I needn't have been concerned as this turned out to be one of the best shows I've seen in ages.
Much like the Flaming Lips, Cornelius has gone for a multimedia approach when playing live. The opening is spectacular - a white sheet in front of the band with Cornelius in silhouette pointing at spaces where words appear by way of an introduction, then the sheet falls away and they launch into 'Point Counterpoint' accompanied by the hectic video for that track on the screen behind them.
It continues in this vein for the rest of the set, the visuals completely in sync with the band, and in fact they don't even take a break until they've played half of the 'Point' album in sequence. I don't know whether it was the presence of the visual accompaniment, but 'Point' seems to have been given a new lease of life for me tonight. On previous listens I thought it was pretty good, tonight it sounds great.
it wasn't just new material though, some older songs from 'Fantasma' are revisited with 'Count Five or Six' coming across as one of the most memorable moments. Although some people may say that having everything in sync ruins the spontaniety of the band and makes it less of a live event, i don't think that it detracted at all from the gig. In fact Cornelius makes a break into the crowd at one point and chooses someone to come on stage and help him play 'Love Me Tender' on the theremin against a backdrop of old Elvis movies!
One of the most remarkable shows i'd seen in ages, and one of my favourite gigs of this year so far.

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