Things change and everything's in a state of transformation. Impermanence is the only constant. But it usually seems that when we notice change, it's usually for the worse - it's rare that we notice when things seem to get better, rarer still when good things get even better. The reliably terrific band Junip, who last played Atlanta in a wonderful show at the Earl back in 2010, showed that they had gotten even better in the past couple years, totally mesmerizing the audience with their performance last night at Terminal West.
Barbarosa opened.
Barbarosa is London's James Mathé, who is currently a touring member of Junip as well as their opener, too. He plays solo, bringing only a drummer on stage to join him for a couple of songs, and sings in a soulful manner somewhere between Active Child and James Blake, and not far at all from the warm croon of Junip's own Jose Gonzalez.
When they played the Earl back in November 2010, Junip was a quartet. They've expanded into a quintet for this tour, but the change was more than just the addition of Mathé. With three keyboards/synths backing him (four when one member puts down his bass), their sounds is much more layered and lush than ever before, sometimes sounding light as a feather, other times heavy and ominous. At times, their electronic washes of sound brought to mind Moonface's occasional backing band Sinaii.
In any event, it was a transcendent set, with the audience - at least this member - getting swept away by the stream of music and being carried along, guided the whole time by Gonzalez' reassuring and warm voice.
It's a sign of a great performance that I can't even remember the sequence of the songs, other than they played their early hit Always near the beginning, and Line of Fire, the song featured in the series finale of Breaking Bad, toward the end (the encore?). Back in 2010, their encore included a cover of U2's With Or Without You - with Sharon Van Etten singing no less - but as hard to believe as it is, their encore last night was every bit as good. This was clearly one of the best shows of the season.
I know that I think that after almost every show, but this one really was something special.
As I told you, it's been a long while since someone did that to my head. It was like I was actually "in" the music.
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