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Concert
Review by Nick Morgan |
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CONCERT
REVIEW
by Nick Morgan
SEAN
ONO LENNON
Bush Hall, London
4th March 2007
I
can’t imagine it’s easy living permanently
in the shadow of your father. Nor can it be much
fun being regularly upstaged by your mother. But
if you’re the son of the most famous Beatle
and the woman that Britain (still) most loves
to hate (or is that the estranged wife of Sir
Macca, Heather Mills McCartney?) then there’s
simply no point running for cover – there
isn’t any. |
 |
| Sean
Ono Lennon has just released his second
album Friendly Fire (prompted by the break-up of
his four-year relationship with Bijou Phillips –
daughter, if you didn’t know, of the Mamas
and Papas’ John Phillips), a pleasant enough
piece of work, ‘though by no means as remarkable
as some of the music press reviews would suggest.
However its reception was mainly muted, and the
fact that he’s in the middle of a punishing
tour of the world – deliberately choosing
small lesser-known clubs and halls rather than headlining
venues has largely passed the press by. His mother
however has just been lionised for her new album
Yes I’m a Witch – a highly acclaimed
(“a compelling argument for righting a historical
wrong” said the Guardian, reflecting on some
of the more harsh judgements of her musical talent)
collection of remixes and cover versions of her
earlier works. A second album, Open Your Box, a
collection of dance remixes, is due out next month
and no doubt will take up a similarly large amount
of press space. But Sean seems a nice enough sort
of guy and he doesn’t appear to let any of
it get on top of him. |
| In
fact if anything he’s just too nice. Long
haired, bearded, thick set (actually he’s
rather plump) with heavy round spectacles, he’s
nicely turned out in jacket and tie (as are the
rest of his band). It’s all a bit foppish,
and he looks something like a seventies throwback.
He “loves us all”, tells us ‘we’re
all beautiful’ and is “very thrilled
to be in London” – “yeah, my dad
was English … and he was a musician too”
-it’s in danger of being a bit too dippy-hippy.
All of this in a rather fey and possibly irritating
Californianese infused accent (which is strange
when he sings with a slightly nasal tone as if he
sort of comes from somewhere in the North of England).
But he’s fighting back against niceness –
“Hey, like some magazine said I was like in
a poll of the most disappointing rock and roll children
– well I say …” (pause for dramatic
effect) “… suck my dick!”. He
stares at the crowd defiantly a bit like a five
year old who’s said ‘poo’ in front
of his granny. And of course what he doesn’t
tell us that he came tenth in a
poll that was topped by his sometimes estranged
half-brother Julian. Later we get an unnecessarily
expletive infused account of his attempts to book
the Bush Hall “Like I said I’m it’s
fucking Sean man and they said, well you can’t
fucking play here, and I said well fucking fuck
you …” But the best rock and roll moment
of the night was when he walked onto the cramped
stage for the encore holding a lit cigarette. “It’s
no smoking Sean” called out one of the devotees
at the front. Within seconds it’s guiltily
stubbed out on the floor. Rock on! |
Yuka and Sean (any resemblence is purely coincidential...) |
The
evening begins with the complex and intense Italian
band Joujoux
D’antan; “I just love these guys
and their music” said Lennon as he joined
them with keyboard player Yuka Honda at the end
of their set. The pretty Bush Hall is Sunday evening
half-empty and I keep on expecting it to fill up,
but it never really does even though the gig is
posted as ‘sold out’. Maybe it’s
fire regulations, but there’s no crowd of
disappointed ticket seekers and touts outside. Yuka
Honda, by the way, was a fellow member with Lennon
of Cibo Matto, and (along with Beach Boy bonkers
Brian Wilson) the inspiration for his first album
Into the Sun, which she also produced. She was his
‘long-time live-in girlfriend’, is (as
her name would suggest) Japanese, and though of
indeterminate age is probably almost old enough
to be his mother. |
| No
comment. She holds together a very tight band (sadly
mostly anonymous) – but they’re all
clearly there to support Lennon – they’re
all watching his every move, accommodating his whims
and fancies. |
| The
songs are all from Friendly Fire with the exception
of a new composition ‘Smoke and mirrors’.
I could be wrong but it seemed that even the most
devoted fan winced at the start of this such was
its similarity to ‘Because’ (or was
it ‘I want you’?) from the Beatles Abbey
Road. Anyway, we also had ‘Mystery juice’
from his 1998 solo debut Into the Sun (“the
first decent song I wrote”) as the second
encore. I’m afraid that it goes without saying
that most of the songs have a late-sixties Beatles
feel about them – not that there’s anything
wrong with that – some bands have made a living
out of it. It’s not helped that Lennon is
most like his father when he addresses the microphone
to sing – the resemblance at that point is
uncanny. As I said – all nice enough tunes,
but all pretty one paced, even if they are rocked
up for the evening. Lennon plays acoustic guitar
to start and then takes up a Stratocaster for ‘Falling
out of love’. The sound was already being
pumped up during the previous (and nice) ‘Friendly
fire’, but it got far too loud towards the
end. ‘Would I be the one’, a Marc Bolan
song, which finishes the main set is long and noisy
with an over-long, unpersuasive and totally self-indulgent
guitar solo from Lennon to finish. Even his guitarist
look rather pained. |
| There
was an odd mixture in the crowd. Some loquacious
Scotsmen who were veterans of his Glasgow gig in
November were lovingly loud and amusing (“No
Sean, I’ll suck your dick”) –
earnest young Japanese took digital photographs
and videos, a few adoring girls stood at the front
adoring. But, like the guitar solo, like the rock-and
roll posing, and like the album and its hugely expensive
DVD bonus disc (full of frankly juvenile and over-produced
video accompaniments to each of the songs) the evening
was at best unpersuasive. But all I can suggest
is that you buy his album and make your own mind
up. - Nick Morgan (concert photographs by Kate) |
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