Well had a really good gig at the Barbican in London with Damon Albarn (of Blur and Gorillaz fame…), and had a interesting chat with Rufus Wainwright and Imogen Heap. This interesting evening was called Plague Songs.
Plague Songs started when 10 songs based on the 10 plagues of Egypt were commissioned from singer-songwriters around the world for an Artangel film project on immigration. In 2006, 4AD released a star studded album of the same name and this concert became an inevitability. It also conveniently coincided with the premiere of the film Exodus at the London Film Festival.
In case you haven’t been to Sunday school recently, the biblical list of grave afflictions upon which this show is based reads as follows: blood, frogs, lice, flies, death of livestock, boils, hail, locusts, darkness and death of the first born child. An evening of song devoted to such a vivid plethora of the sick and sepulchral doesn’t sound like a particularly palatable treat. The impressive line-up including Rufus Wainwright (over for his own tour dates), Imogen Heap, June Tabor and Damon Albarn amongst others.
Plague Songs at the Barbican was an extraordinary, ambitious and innovative collaborative presentation of the abstract and novel, of pop, rock, country, jazz, rap and the avant-garde, all under one roof.
Now onto the opening of St. Pancras…
October 30th, 2007