LLL: Mike Hadreas' Piano Recital

Linda Live in London - Perfume Genius, 2010

What a treat: in the same week as naming Perfume Genius' debut album my mid-season favourite, I get to see Mike Hadreas live. And I say Mike Hadreas, as it doesn't really feel like it's Perfume Genius up there, he's more of a real person, less of a distant artist - even though his set is set up at the back of the stage of Hoxton Hall, a place rather reminiscent of Paradiso in Amsterdam.

He is preceded by Porcelain Raft who is off to a bit of a rocky start with his first song, but all else is surprisingly good. It's not the obvious choice to put this artist on as a support act for Perfume Genius (except for the whole hey! He's a male singer-songwriter too, you know?-concept), but who actually likes obvious choices anyway? He's a at a crossroads between Caribou and Alaska in Winter but then poured into a one-man show with a guitar, keyboard and sampler and all of that looped into a lovely electronic slightly danceable mix. Well, I say danceable, but it's rather more of an introverted tap your foot to the rhythm and move your head from side to side kinda music. Rather lovely if I may say so (and as I'm reviewing this shindig, I think I may).

As you might have read on this blog, I'm rather in love with Perfume Genius' 'Learning' - read: obsessed - so you could say I had some very high expectations of this gig. When listening to the album, you might expect to find a singer-songwriter who is rather disconnected from the world and writes his songs in a dark room contemplating the beauty of suicide. Just the mere entrance of Mike Hadreas onto the stage rescinds this image. As if it were a piano recital, and Mike Hadreas the lucky seven year old who gets to show off what he's learned in the past two months, he takes up his place behind the piano and waves at the audience. It gets even more recital-like when he looks up for approval to his patron saint Gareth Campesinos! who's also attending Perfume Genius's London début.

For this live setting, Mike is accompanied by Alan Wyffels (nothing could describe him better than his name - if it is actually his name as I'm only sure it's Alan and there's an Alan Wyffels on the sleeve of the record), who acts as the teacher conducting the recital - as yes, we are still attending a recital. The best moments are when Mike makes mistakes - forgetting to change to a different chord or just getting lost in the music - and the audience, as if we were the proud parents attending our son's performance, applaud even louder. There are actually quite a few of these moments, though they only add to the intimate atmosphere.

Is this then the perfect gig to accompany the perfect debut album? No, it most certainly is not. There is that awful moment, at the very beginning of the gig, when Alan uses the 'pan flute' mode on his keyboard to accompany 'Look Out, Look Out', which absolutely ruins the song for me. Maybe it's my aversion to the pan flute (pan flutes and banjos are works of the devil), or the fact that I happen to be standing on the left side of the stage right in front of the boxes from which the pan flute emanates, but it's more a of a distraction than an addition to the sound in any way possible. Nevertheless, the rest of the set is simply enchanting. 'Learning' - a quatre mains piece in live setting - and 'Mr Peterson' more than make up for the use of the pan flute mode. As a true seven year old, Mike Hadreas seems genuinely surprised and thankful at the love his music is receiving, and as he doesn't really seem to know what else to do, he scurries off the stage after another quick 'thank you' at the end of his set. This just might have been the most genuine gig I've seen in quite some time.