Grace Jones – Royal Albert Hall, London – 26/4/10
4/5
By: Charlie Tittle
Despite a kindly voice telling us we have two Earth minutes to find our seats, we’re sat in our red velveteen thrones for a good while before Grace Jones drops the curtain on her show. This is neither surprising, nor particularly aggravating. Understandably, it’s not just the band but the audience she wants perfectly in place for this entrance, which involves her standing covered head to toe in an enormous, dark sheet, singing like a lapsed angel, moving her frame around her silky confines to create ripples and thrusts that accentuate parts of the song you might not even have noticed otherwise. It’s clear from the off that above music or even personality, tonight is about performance. Despite the fact that at this point nobody could actually be certain it even is Grace Jones underneath that curiously bulging sheet, she’s performing as if her life depended on it. Then the sheet comes off, ‘Williams’ Blood’ starts, and an enormous woman struts around the stage dressed as a Zebra. It’s definitely Grace Jones.
Speaking of ‘Williams’ Blood’, the unusually personal recent single is one of her best ever songs, and the apologies that preface the unveiling of every new track such as it this evening really aren’t necessary. But Grace, on fine, jovial form, is clearly aware of her place in things, and the fun that can be had once you’ve ascended to ‘legend’ status. “Oh go on, let’s play another classic”, she mockingly moans before ‘My Jamaican Guy’ finally has this oddly grumpy crowd resembling something like the bunch of party goers Grace Jones would rather be hanging out with.
One has to feel a little sorry for her band – though their leader spends much time saying how much she loves them, allows them time in the umpteen costume changes to flex their musical muscles and bestows upon them the obligatory one by one name check that you kinda have to do if you’re playing the Royal Bloody Albert Bloody Hall, it’s still the case that nobody could really give a damn who they are or what they’re doing. They’re kept in a pit behind the stage, pretty much out of view for anyone who’s not up in the Circle. It’s made very clear that you should be looking at Grace and her latest fabulous dress, and not the band, please. But when the dresses are as fabulous as the mammoth flowing gown that stretches the entire length of the stage once thrown to the wind during ‘Hurricane’, you at least recognise the lady’s point.
In fact, the only time the musicians are even noticed by the audience at all is when they mess up. Our front-woman threatens to fire whoever it was who dropped the ball mid song, half jokingly, but probably not jokingly at all (“I’m sure this happens to everybody when they play the Royal Albert Hall!”). In fact, the only member who’s probably totally safe from persecution is Grace’s own son, here on percussion duties. But he has his own peculiar cross to bear – remember that during ‘La Vie En Rose’, whilst we’re staring at her ridiculously, fantastically enormous flower of a red dress, Jones Jr. is instead confronted with the image of his 61 year old mother’s bare arse. Though we do get a wiggle of it on her way off stage.
Up in the circle, tickets for seats were going for £70.00. There are a fair few empty chairs. Grace has noticed, too – during a brief sit down for a glass of wine (sipped through a red straw, picked to match her dress), we’re informed that there’s meant to be a fan gently blowing in her direction at that point. She ponders that its absence may be due to budget cuts, owing to the lack of ticket sales. But just when she’s about to strike you as too diva-ish to warrant your continued admiration, let alone pity, she lets out a line so knowingly and outlandishly diva-ish that you forgive her everything. “I may have legs like a racehorse darling, but I do not like to sweat like one.”
That the gig was going to be at least a spectacle was never in doubt, but the fact that the still present ambition on show, the musical prowess of the (albeit underappreciated) band and the sheer magnetism of the woman up front all comes together in a manner so dazzling, it exceeds expectations. From Lady Gaga to M.I.A., there’s a whole host of lesser Graces who wish they could achieve a balance of humility and wonder in a way as stylish as this girl.
Artists in this article: Grace Jones
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