“How does it feel when it’s quiet and calm?”
Is there such a thing as the “perfect venue”? A venue designed to host live entertainment, Theatre, Live Music, Comedy, can that venue be so intrinsically in tune with the acts it puts forth? Can a venue simultaneously look and embody it’s chosen acts?
…well sadly not, I can’t imagine a venue which specialises in Hardcore, Death Metal would be writing up emails to Sabrina Carpenter asking if she can tour the place. Now that I think about it, what Juno pose would she do there? A Man, and Woman can only wonder.
But…sometimes that gold can be struck, can’t it? You picture any artist in the world, and you picture them in a certain light, a certain venue, a certain destination. Can you picture that small local band that you can’t shut up about performing in sell-out stadiums, could The Beatles have returned to the Cavern Club, where it all began?
Did the people who first saw London-born Michael Kiwanuka live and picture him soon in a venue as regal and royal as the O2 Apollo? Well, The Beatles never played at the Cavern Club again after 1963, but Kiwanuka certainly did perform at the O2 Apollo, because I was there, and I saw this soft, elegant wonder of an artist with my own two eyes. And these eyes never lie.
Stepping into the O2 Apollo, I was struck by how serene the entire place looked. I felt like royalty, shoddy royalty given I was tracking about in a Red Bull jacket, but everyone needs their wings. And if some of the 3,500 people inside hadn’t found their wings, they wound up in the right place to find them.
The stage was graceful, refined, it felt like a comfortable home, it strangely felt familiar, even though this was my first time stepping through its fluorescent oak-like doors. I could picture myself up there, sitting down, having a nice cuppa, winding myself away from the world itself, and I don’t even like tea.
That elegance, that unobtrusive and natural beauty bled itself through the music. “The Rest Of Me” started the meditation. A gentle, soft undercut that eloquently and majestically sets a sense of ease into the audience that pervades through the near two hour setlist.
Kiwanuka’s music touches on a lot of personal experiences. Faith, family, loss, religion, love and the unscathed reality of being a black man in a white world. The message never beats you down like a hammer to a nail, rather it gently holds you, like a mother cradling a baby. And if that message does beat down on you, like on “Black Man In a White World”, then it’s done justifiably so. A backdrop of claps, aided by a groovy and rhythmic guitar riff that hangs in the background, never taking centre stage, for once it’s Kiwanuka that’s the focal point.
Kiwanuka shines most when he’s at his most intimate. It perhaps fell on no coincidence that this year marked 13 years since this journey all started, with 2012’s “Home Again”, and Michael dedicated the LP’s titular track to us, the audience, for having stuck by on this humble journey. Thirteen is traditionally an unlucky number. But no one inside the Apollo were considering themselves unlucky.
Whether it’s a year or thirteen that you’ve been following Michael, there’s a certain satisfaction to enjoy about nights like these. Whether you were wound up on your own or with that special person, everyone has a connection to Kiwanuka. He may not always sing about things that you believe in. Tracks that focus on Kiwanuka’s faith and religion, like the excellent ‘Hero’ shouldn’t resonate with me, yet the manner and execution of which Kiwanuka’s feelings are conveyed are ethereal, they feel heaven sent, like an angel has passed down these songs for Michael to give to us, the people.
And if the warm, sunny serenading hadn’t led to people finding their wings, then Kiwanuka and his ten-man band coming back out for a second encore to perform two beloved fan favourites surely lifted their spirits, and their heights. ‘Cold Little Heart’ is a classic, an undeniable fact, for an undeniably great track, with a killer guitar riff, and some of Michael’s most graceful vocals.
And to close out the night was the aptly titled ‘Love and Hate’, a beautiful, seven-minute spectacle, with strings that ascend, vocals that soar, and a lyrical motif of triumph, about never letting anything break you down. When this song was playing, two things trailed my mind. Firstly, I need to get to my train to not be trapped here. But second, to my right, was a young couple, perhaps a few years older than me, dancing away, holding each other, and embracing the moment. There may have been love and hate before, but for this one moment, there was only love.
I did come away feeling slightly down about ‘Cold Little Heart’ not getting its ten-minute sweeping rendition. But if Michael Kiwanuka did treat us to said spectacle, I wouldn’t be writing this piece about how tranquil and blissful the gig was. I’d be trapped in Manchester. That wouldn’t be very tranquil now.
