There should be more gigs on boats, especially canal
boats. Granted there’s not much chance of a circle pit breaking out or anyone
crowd surfing (that could get messy...) but there’s something about the
intimacy of a space like this that heightens the connection between audience
and performer, especially as the whole thing took place in the relative
brightness of a drizzly Saturday afternoon to boot.
This gig was part of the Eastern Electronic Festival, a month long celebration of new British Asian musical talent held
right here in Brum. All three of this afternoon’s artists were commissioned by
the organisers to produce a piece that summed up what Birmingham means to them
and they each performed in between a commentary about the City’s heritage as we
chugged slowly down the canal setting up a neat contrast between the old and the new. First up
Raju Mali’s piece entitled Home, a gentle folk tinged musing on his sense of
belonging. There’s a touch of Jeff Buckley to his vocal in places together with
a hint of that wonderful quivering (I think it might be called a wide vibrato
but I could just be making stuff up again...) edge that runs through a lot of
traditional Asian music. Not being of Asian heritage myself I can only guess at
what it must be like growing up with that dual cultural mix, although happily we’re
now living in an age where the lines are getting pretty blurred as ably demonstrated by Raju's poignant performance.
Next up some inspiring spoken word courtesy of
Amerah Salah, who was rather splendidly bedecked in a bright pink silk bow tie.
You don’t see enough bow ties these days, let alone pink silk ones. Asking us
all to close our eyes (maybe to prevent us from being bedazzled by the tie) she
flipped the brief on its head a little taking a more inward looking approach.
It was a thought provoking piece (hopefully it and all of the other
performances will be uploaded soon) taking in everything from accepting who you
are, how you look and how you see and treat others through to seizing the day
and hugging “like it will be your last”. What a wonderful sentiment eh?
Last up the effervescent Alisha Yasmin Kadir with
Your Child, a touching track reflecting the fact that she’s partially a product
of Birmingham’s “concrete streets” but equally the people that inhabit it. I’m
guessing the line about being “A child with a lack of four walls” could be
construed several different ways but bobbing gently along I took it to be an
overwhelmingly positive reflection of a City that’s happily free of barriers
and prejudice, an epithet that could equally be applied to the entire Eastern
Electronic Festival itself.
Find out what else the Festival has to offer (there
are a wallet/purse pleasing bunch of free events too) right here!
PS: You can take a trip on the canal...minus the
music...via Away2Canal
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