REVIEW:
Tomás Ford, Pony Melbourne
Review & Photograph By Randall Stephens, Rabbit Hole Urban Music, 5/11/2010
The Pony club. Its very name inspires loathing, dread and apprehension in Melburnians… or at least causes them to snigger a little. A visit there is always exactly as bad as the last time; forcing you to remember why you don’t make it more often. The desperate libidinous wastage that falls over this place at 3am is famous in Melbourne. The vision is palpable. It’s like a cloud of toxic gas coming over the hipster, seenster, and emo washouts as they realise the last gasps of their evening before they go home alone - very soon - if they don’t hook up with someone in the room, now!
So get this, I went to Pony last weekend. Not because I was desperate (not-because-I-was-desperate). What I was, was, there to see Tomás Ford.
On paper, his music should instantly be the sort of thing I hate; arty electro punk with lots and lots of costume changes and video monitors. But having first seeing Tomás and his one man extravaganza at a spoken word night on his home turf of Perth, I was immediately captivated by his eerie, melancholy and tensely-subdued performance. And I wasn’t the only one.
Even now in Melbourne’s worst strong hold of disaffectedly pale skinny black-clad wanker mods, where audience participation comes as easily as flight does for penguins, Tomás still managed to make magic. When you’re in the room with Tomás when he starts performing, he owns you. The show emanates from him, not what he’s doing on stage. Most of the time he wasn’t on stage. He’s there singing a few inches from your face. And then he’s serenading the nose-bleeders over at the bar. He’s also hugging the folded-armed passive stares right out of them. And still he’s huddling with us all and sweating all over us and the music is coming from everywhere and it’s very intense and insane and peaceful and everything else that has happened that night falls away and you’re just a part of what’s happening, now. Tomás makes you a part of his music.
Tomás brought his show to climax, and still left time to leave before the whole desperate 3am werewolf-in-moonlight impression took place. So I left alone, a little more sober and numb than I might usually be. I hadn’t wanted it to end.
REVIEW:
Tomás Ford, The Front Canberra
By Katy M., Fasterlouder.com.au, 7/11/2010
Photo by Miko Katze of Perth tour date. For full gallery click here.
Oh Tomás Ford, there really is no one like him. When our parents were dishing out the early childhood lectures about being an individual and “being true to yourself” it can be guaranteed that this fine gentleman sat up and took it all to heart and ran off to the stage immediately.
First of all, as a performer, he’s quite mad. Excessive costumes, glittered face, jolted dancing around wherever he may be and a mouth that would make your grandmother cry, he really is all that and a bag of potato chips.
On his last tour, Ford exclaimed “oh yeah, my Mum is a nasty bitch; she’s wild”, much to the bewilderment of the Canberra crowd. And though he later followed up with an explanation of how wonderful she actually is, and pointed out her assistance with his costume, it gives you an idea of what to expect. That is, if your image is a man wearing fluorescent clothing from head to toe and has an expression on his face like he’s about to attack you while simultaneously giving you a lap dance and a face full of glitter.
This nationwide tour, his very own Birthday Party, was one with all the stops pulled out. Part burlesque underworld, part mardi gras, part mental asylum; I wasn’t the only one who stumbled out feeling lucky to be alive by the end of the night and wondering what exactly had just happened. The Front can be misleading like that, poked away neatly in the Lyneham shops, all wood panelling and art space, low-key furniture and wreaking of hemp. And yet inside was a man hitting the timber like it was no show queen’s business.
The absolute highlight to Ford’s shows is the level of uniqueness he brings to each one. He is so shocking and captivating that once you see one show, you will invariably go back to another simply to see what happens next and watch first timer’s reactions.
Aside from the glitz and glam, he’s a truly wonderful musician. His mash of electronic beats and distorted melodies (read: everything) forces your ears to get past what your eyes see and take him seriously. You don’t win three WAMI’s out of nothing, and you certainly don’t score the support slot for the upcoming Caribou and Fourtet tour if you don’t know what you’re doing.
He’s everything fantastic and ridiculous that electronic music can be without the ego of Nick Littlemore and it makes for good listening, and a damned fine show. Willing to try anything with laptop programming and tulle, he is the epitome of the unforgettable performer.
REVIEW:
Tomás Ford, The Astor Theatre Mt Lawley
By Ben Watson, Fasterlouder.com.au, 2/3/2010
Photo by William Blake. For a full gallery of images from this show, click here.
Mount Lawley, Western Australia. On a hill, on Beaufort Street. In a theatre, or a cinema, which is old and historic and awesome but for some reason isn’t used very often any more except for cultural events or the occasional independent film (which is worrying, yet also awesome). In a small, upstairs lair hidden around a corner, to an intimate seated crowd of around 100 slightly apprehensive yet good-natured punters, a normally demure man of average stature, dressed smartly as some kind of affable Haçiendan chimney sweep, is smashing the fuck out of a computer keyboard. His name is Tomás Ford, and he has just recovered after tripping over backwards and stacking it into his shit.
Tomás Ford’s ‘shit’, for those who are unfamiliar, consisted on this occasion of about a half-dozen (or more) computer screens, painted up and bandied about the floor space at the front of the cinema. Behind him, the cinema screen simulcasts an appropriate mix of low-fidelity footage, Invaders-era video game shenanigans, and a consistently hilarious mix of perfectly self-deprecating and amusingly self-referential slogans. Things like ‘It is now appropriate to lose your shit’, and an extended dialogue on why Tomás Ford is not a DJ, but plays DJ gigs regardless.
After following up his mess-making with an appropriately mellow number during which he used a dust-pan and broom to clean keys off the floor while serenading the audience, Tomás Ford faced the crowd and declared with a grin: “most people in Perth think I sold out down stairs!” (a reference to the cinema’s cavernous main room which is nowadays used for Karvnivool gigs and the like). This comment was, naturally, met with rapturous grins from the full cinema—a perfectly intimate setting for Ford’s first theatre show since his legendarily controversial Tomás Ford vs The Audience gigs back in ‘07.
The first thing that needs to be understood about Ford, who is by now a road-hardened and theatrically accomplished audience provocateur, is that the man’s show, with all its invasions of personal space and outrageously extraverted behaviour, is simply unadulterated comedy from start to finish. Combining pre-conceived ideas with spontaneous hilarity, Ford’s self-deprecating stage demeanour and reflexive banter are the perfect counterpoint to his outrageous on-stage behaviour. In one moment, the entire crowd was cheering for Ford’s mother, who was in attendance and designed his costumes, and the next, were yelling ‘fuck me harder!!’ as the performer introduced his supposed ‘safe word’ for the evening.
There was also music, of course, and aside from a brief acoustic interlude (during which volunteers from the audience assisted by holding microphones and acting as comedic bait), Ford stuck to his staple of brain shattering electro beats, twiddled and programmed using boxes of mysterious noises and knobs. The music itself often seems incidental, but it’s as much a part of the show as anything—and it was nice that, tonight, Ford took the time to explain some of his lyrics and concepts as he lead into re-mixed versions of classics like Five Times and Bash Myself.
For the most part, the awkward social interactions that so often have pub punters baffled and disturbed were actually kept to a minimum—or perhaps they were more contextually appropriate as Ford fell through the audience, hugging people for just long enough for it to be uncomfortable, before moving on to his next folly. Ford made great use of the space though: at one point sliding down the banister above the theatre’s entrance, at another utilising the cinema’s small stage for an hilarious cover of a song from Billy Elliot during which he struck some of the cheesiest Broadway poses known to man.
After just the right amount of time, Ford invited all his guests for the evening to join him down in front of the cinema screen, where he crowd surfed, then serenaded his way through a final couple of numbers. In perfect style, avoiding any uncomfortable final applause, Ford then issued one final instruction: “GO HOME”. To the end, this was hilarious, because naturally the audience had no idea whether or not the man was serious. He was, and Ford soon took to physically evicting patrons, swearing at them if necessary. GTFO.
A great concept, and a great performance, Tomás Ford’s Disco Bunker was rad all round. More stuff like this in Perth please.
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