The man & his machines, after the break!
Jack Garratt & Kacy Hill @ The Fonda Theatre
(03/11/16)
Another night The Fonda. What can I say? Goldenvoice is booking the hell out of the joint. Jack Garratt & Kacy Hill took over this music box last Friday night and absolutely killed. It wasn’t a terribly long show either. Perfect for a weekend starter. By 11 PM we were thrown back onto the streets of Hollywood BLVD. Hell of a show overall. Here are my highlights & thoughts from it.
This was my first time seeing Kacy Hill. A LA artist who is now apart of Kanye West’s G.O.O.D. Music label. Go read her interview with RSVP Gallery. Gives great insight to this emerging, soon to be talked about, fantastic musician.
The hometown crowd was definitely behind Kacy as she belted out tracks from her past EPs and pieces from her upcoming G.O.O.D. debut. She was on cloud 9 before us. Allowing for a near perfect showcase with solid vocals to boot. What I loved was during each break she humbling and apologetically laughed at the huge pops she got after our constant roars. Makes sense why she loves LA. We can be the best.
Totally recommend checking out her YouTube or Spotify pages for some powerful electronic pop streams. I provided her buzzworthy single, “Experience”, to the left. Because I find reading concert review tedious with accompanying tunes.
Love it when the opener actually helps the headliner by REALLY psyching up the crowd. That’s why they are there. You could tell that Kacy & Jack respected each other as artists. Thus making this formula work wonders.
Jack Garratt is one talented artist. We watched him play every instrument (guitar, 808s, keyboard, etc.) and mix them, live, while howling his powerful fiery lyrics. The image of which still gives me chills. Ed Sheeran puts on a similar show, but fails in comparison to how much multitasking Jack does onstage. These are not vocal tricks with multiple microphones. Jack Garratt makes music each time he performs. Now that’s you don’t see often. The cascade of the perfectly synced light show was an added bonus. His entire performance is like a living manifestation of a machine; blending Pop, Hip Hop, Rock, and EDM into this harrowing package of emotion.
His debut LP – Phase (out now!) – contains many of these genre blending/breaking conventions. And what surprised me was they worked better live than on tape. Jack’s vocal strength is utterly devastating. Even at the back row of the Fonda. You are literally in the middle of a hurricane of light & sound that paints this abstract, romantic picture in your mind’s eye. There is nothing more beautiful than unexpected love. And you’d never expect such lovely tunes from Jack Garratt, if you saw him on the street in his overalls. The boy has got mad soul.
The best example of this is his cover/mashup of Craig David’s “7 Days” with Justin Timberlake’s “Senorita”.
NOTE: Watch the fan video of Jack’s performance of “7 Days / Senorita” to the left. I haven’t uploaded my video of this performance, which is WAY better quality. Will update soon. Still you get the point. Legitness.
The show didn’t really stop once Jack got on stage. The lights went down for a minute or so. No pretentious forced encore needed. Jack, proving that he is a true rule breaking musician, played his 10 tracks until the time ran off. He told us that his last song, “Worry”, was it. And we listened and filed out. Despite having a 10 track setlist many of his instrumentals (Synesthesia, Part 1) felt like transitions to his more popular hits. Gave an organic feel to the whole experience.
Jack Garratt is definitely worth checking out. Always hard to judge artists solely on one release, but Jack is the real deal. I got my resale balcony ticket for about $50. But for talent like Jack I would’ve shelled out at least $100. $200 based on aftertaste of the experience. You really don’t want to regret not seeing him when he’s selling out arenas and your playing $300 for nose bleeds. Take my word and GO. SEE. JACK. GARRATT. (and Kacy Hill!) Now onto the photos.
FYI: Every single one of my photos were taken from the last row on stage left side in the balcony. With a 30x point and shoot. Never complain that you can’t take amazing shots. My camera did a bang up job.
