brian in brighton

off to brighton last saturday for a top quality day with some friends doing the kind of things londoners do in brighton - fish and chips, arsing around on the pier etc, then to see icebreaker and bj cole perform brian eno's apollo at the brighton dome. brian hisself (in his sixties and still sexy) came on and introduced the music, which was played to a special cut of the film it was written for (al reinert's for all mankind).



the film interested me much less than seeing/hearing just how icebreaker were going to tackle the music, mainly because i've seen it a silly number of times. jun lee's orchestrations were subtle and inventive, and this has to go down as the first gig i've been at that featured both panpipes and accordion that i didn't want to run away from screaming. an ending (ascent) was particularly transcendent, particularly in the final reprise where mr cole joined in with some delish pedal steel.

after that, brian returned to the atage and announced 'an unadvertised adition to the published programme - some things which have never been played live before'. the ensemble than played four songs - two from 'another day on earth' and to my shock/delight/amazement etc, two from 'before and after science' - 'julie with...' and 'by this river'. i blubbed a little bit. that's not something i ever thought i'd hear (bri famously does not do this kind of thing), and though the buzz was nostalgia-driven as much as anything, these were rather lovely versions. the closing 'and then so clear' with bri's vocoded sexchange vocal, was absolutely fucking swoonsome.