jones, the rhythm
Friday, June 20th, 2008
Grace Jones is a legend. It’s that simple, if not that pure. And like all legends, she is surrounded by gossip, myth, apocryphal stories. For instance, there’s the one about her rider consisting of first class air fares for her and her band from New York to London (when both her and her band actually lived London already; the tickets were cashed in, and the money pocketed, it’s said). Or the demand for Cases of Krug or Kilos of Coke to be delivered backstage or else the lady would not appear.
There’s the story that, in September 1998, Jones was banned from all Disney properties worldwide after baring her breasts in a concert at Walt Disney World.
I’ve seen her perform twice before. Once was a charity bash where she came on, did one song, and blew the whole of Wembley away. The first time was a concert at Brixton academy. Let’s just say it wasn’t one of her best performances.
Shambolic, quite frankly, was the word used at the time. She was three hours late, sang the songs and made little or no attempt to build any rapport with the audience, and spent much of the show lounging in an office chair being pushed around by two muscle Marys.
So I didn’t approach last night’s South Bank Centre show with a great deal of optimism. It was part of Meltdown, an annual season curated by various luminaries of the musical world. This years, being curated by the Bristolian Trip Hop Duo, was referred to all over the shop as Massive Attack’s Meltdown, prompting me to wonder whether we’d ever get something similar hosted by, say, Britney Spears, and D to respond that, surely, we’d already seen Britney Spears’ Meltdown. And her vagina. Frankly, I thought, if Grace Jones turns up, it’ll be a miracle.
I was so wrong. It was fanfuckingtstic. In D’s opinion (and believe me he’s (a) a huge concert goer, and (b) not one for hyperbole) it could very well be the best concert of the year. The Year. And it’s only June.
Miss Jones - Jones the Rhythm as she was once famously referred to - appeared half an hour later than scheduled. The show was due to run 80 minutes. It ran almost 240. With nary a pause between songs (although each song ended - and began - with long instrumental breaks, allowing Ms J time for the multitide of costume changes, and the audience time to appreciate one of the tightest bands I’ve heard in a long time).
She seemed invigorated. Her voice was infintiely better than I remembered it (one can forget, listening to the classic recordings nowadays, that what you’re hearing, by and large, is what was recorded. And in a world of pro-tools and auto tunes, that just increases the shock of hearing a live performance as good as - if not better than - the recording. Hello Mrs Ritchie, I’m talking about you). Her sense of the absurd was as sharp as ever (an opening number dress so tight that, although she appeared at the top of a huge flight of steps, she was incapable of actually walking down them, resorting, at the end of the song, to a practice my brother and I used to refer to as ‘bumming’ down them (or, as she said “This…… is how I descend (visible shudder) stairs. It’s called …. (Pintersque pause as she bums down two more steps) …. The Craaawl.”)
Lighting was a little odd. D asked, at one point, whether she always performs in a blacked out stage, as there seemed to be more lights on the audience. Not sure whether this was a deliberate ploy to pull the audience in, a theatrical manoeuver to highlight the anitcipation (possible, since as the show progressed, the lighting, by and large, improved drastically), or just a cack-handed lighting director (also possible as Grace’s disembodied voice, at one point, is heard calling “Hellooo. I’m over here,” before the follow spot slides stage right to find her).
Her sense of theatre is amazing. Four songs in, and “Not enough of you motherfuckers are up,” she decides, as the band loop into a funky groove - all pounding baselines and scratchy guitars. Sixteen bars in, and still unhappy with the level of ‘upness’ in the audience, she, quite literally stage dives into the crowd. Grace Jones is sixty. She has buns she can bounce a roll of quarters off, legs that go on forever and ever, a voice that has improved with age, she is wearing fishnet tights, nine inch heels, and a corset with a gusset consisting of dental floss. And she’s fucking crowd surfing. She’s a prettier Iggy, baby. And it works. Because, of course, when the act on stage leaves the stage, the only way for anyone in the audience beyond the first five rows to follow the action is by standing up and craning ones neck. Job done. The house is up, and, largely, remains that way for the rest of the night.
There was old stuff. New Stuff (surprisingly good; much better than some of her mid ’90’s product, and with a fantastic, hook ladedn, funky single “Keeping up with the Joneses” thats promising a whole new lease of live when the much awaited - in our house, at least - album comes out later this year). And banter with the audience, as when she announces, at the start of a new song, that she can’t actually remember the lyrics. Three minutes of the band grooving are punctuated with her increasingly paniced demands “Bring me my goddam lyrics! Why are you doing this to me, you motherfuckers?! I need a drink!!! Fuck it, I’ll have to improvise.” Before she blasts into some of the most lyrically complicated verses of her canon - part rapid rap, part languid Jamaican Grace, all in a song called ‘Life’. It’s obvious, by the end, that she not only knew the lyrics all along; she’s got them engraved on her heart.
“I was only fuckin’ with you,” she smiles at her adoring crowd.
And, as the penultimate song “Pull up to the Bumper” blasts out, she calls the crowd up on stage with her - a freak show of fats, femmes, muscle marys with ancient heads, arty gays, housewives, all grinding and bumping and, for a moment, it’s the mid seventies, it’s studio 54, everyone’s on something other than this planet, and there’s hope for a world where we can all get along, where talent doesn’t need to be packaged in glossy blonde smiley packages, talent show desperadoes or misogynistic gnagsta rap, where 60 year olds can flash their tits at Mickey Mouse and crowd surf, and where hats, my dear, are a vital statement.
“I was only fuckin’ with you,” she said. Long may she fuck.