Hailing from Denton, Texas (somewhere in the Dallas-Fort Worth area), ROBERT GOMEZ is a long way from home. This night saw him headline London's infamous Borderline club in Soho, as the finale to a month-long European tour with labelmates, and fellow Dentonites, MIDLAKE.
A good crowd had turned out to see Gomez's debut. Not bad at all considering that the gig took place on a Monday night. Gomez nabbed the drummer, bassist and guitarist from Midlake, and after adding a female, and a (rather cute) cellist into the mix, ditto for the keyboardist, Gomez aquired a real talented bunch of musicians helping him out on stage. In fact, the stage was just about able to hold them all at once.
Norah Jones is reportedly a fan, and was recently caught singing along to his performance at the SXSW festival. This is unsurprising given Gomez's melodic and accessible sound, producing the kind of music you could easily listen to at a music festival or on Sunday morning relaxing at home.
His voice is entrancing, and at times is reminiscent of Elliot Smith, and perhaps even David Sylvian when his voice wavers in time with the piano and cello. His songs have shades of the Electric Soft Parade with just a harmonious pinch of The Beatles, but perhaps without the moptops' full throttle 'va va voom'.
Robert and his "borrowed bandmates" gave a cracking one hour set, effortlessly moving from one song to another, the time spent touring together clearly paying off. While some songs are more upbeat than others, they were all carefully crafted and certainly sound better performed live than recorded (but isn't that often the case?).
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Notably, one of the tracks, "Pulling and Punching", is very similar to the intro to "Bang Bang" (the song made famous by the film Kill Bill although Nancy Sinatra may not agree!) but then transforms in to a layered, harmonious sound that picks you up and carries you along in a swirl of melody. Other songs in the set-list included "The Leaving", "The Same Sad Song", and "Closer Still".
In terms of musical performance, Gomez was bang on, although he could do with upping the chit chat between songs, and introducing the tracks to those of us who've not come across him before now. Towards the end of his set he started to talk, telling the audience that this gig was the last night of his tour and he was off home the day after. The poor tyke couldn't wait to get some Mexcian food. Now if only he'd said that earlier, he could have come round for dinner...
www.myspace.com/robertgomezmusic
www.robertgomezmusic.com
http://www.midlake.net/
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