(Letters for) Elijah: Live in Patronaat, 13 December 2013

Elijah, Photo Wo.

When somebody is promoted as making music inspired by Jeff Buckley it may be worth my while to turn up early and see the support act to a show. In this case someone billed as Elijah supported Sophie Hunger and stood his ground. One guy, a few guitars at hand and one piano. A singer-songwriter doing his thing.

It is hard to review songs that I have never heard before. A few things were quite clear. Elijah writes and sings songs that definitely invite me to listen to again. Songs that made me quite curious how they will sound with a band behind him. The album, 'Letters for Elijah' is released at the end of January 2014.

In this solo presentation Elijah goes past the standard chords that one usually sees singer-songwriter play, with intricate figures or fast finger picking played in between. Elijah finds his chords all over the fret board, probably in several tunings I'm not familiar with as well. Not just following chord patterns, but using dynamics in several songs, that kept the audience on its toes.

One thing is for certain, Elijah has a pleasant, soft voice and is not afraid of singing. His voice may be soft, but is very confident. And Jeff Buckley? The funny thing is, that listening to 'Live at Sin É' (of course circa 18 years ago), prepared me for this show. (I did not like 'Sin É' at all hearing it for the first time.) Just a guy with his electric guitar singing his heart out. It is this experience that makes me curious on what the next step is on the album. No, I haven't heard a 'Mojo pin', let alone a 'Lover, you should have come over', but I did hear several songs which were good. And yes, just once Elijah let out a scream, Jeff style, that sounded authentic, clear and good.

The comparison was a fairly sound one. Let's see in January what the album brings.

What I had never seen before, is that someone came out on stage to tell the support act that he could only do one more song. Just as he was saying, "I have one more song for you". That aside, Elijah got the chance to really be a support act. The sound was good enough, the words to the songs could be heard. That is more than most support acts can claim. Let me say it again, why have a support act if the audience is not allowed to hear what they play? We heard Elijah and circa half of the audience appreciated him. That is a hopeful start. 

Wo.

You can listen to and buy cd single 'Sammy' here.