Yokko live. Patronaat, Saturday 12 November 2016

Photo: Wo.

As support act to Nada Surf a band from Switzerland called Yokko played. The band had started when I walked in. My first impression was that the band was just as hesitant as I was during those first songs. Yokko also understood that it had one chance to win this audience over and started to work at it. The singer became more involved, the bass player started moving and the guitar started to produce ever more blown up sounds, drenched in echo. Underneath that all is a firm drums and the carpet weaving qualities of the keyboards. Solid sounds that keep the whole together.

The music of Yokko has theatrical elements within it. U2 is in there from the 'The Unforgettable Fire' period, but that's not all. There's more melody in there from big rockbands that all were wiped away with the coming of grunge. In that sense Yokko is more than ready to play arenas. It has a huge sound, which it is able to reproduce successfully on stage. There are a few things in the presentation that certainly need to be bettered, but that is down to experience by playing more. There's one thing that I think would make Yokko a better band straight away, to use the melodic qualities of a keyboard every once in a while. That would not only enhances songs, but also make the set more varied.

Photo: Wo.

Soundwise Yokko was dealt a good hand. The overall sound was softer than Nada Surf's but it was clear and the songs were allowed to be heard. Large parts of the audience were won over into listening. The solo acoustic song was probably asking too much from the people over at the bar. By then I'd noticed that a lot of Yokko's lyrics were about communication, talking. So in that way these people may have gotten the right message, but started to work on it at the wrong time. 15 Minutes later would have been better for all concerned and certainly more respectful towards the musicians.

And then the strangest thing happened. We were invited to participate in a song. It worked, always a bit diving of the deep end to have an audience sing along to an unknown song. So we set to practising with Yokko and shouting "Give it up" at the right time. When the song was truly played and we all fell in at the right time, it turned out we were singing along to a suicide song. What is it with driving down to rivers? Going to the river and never coming back? Great chorus though. It did make me feel a bit weird, but o.k., as long as Yokko doesn't mind me postponing the trip for a while. I'm having a too good a time right now. As a warning in general. You do realise that if the river is the Rhine, in the end you wind up here again in The Netherlands? Better do like the old Germanic tribes and sail down the Rhine to play here again.

So there's only one question left. Can you please tell me the name of the writer of the book 'The Dark Side Of The Moon' that inspired one of the songs? :-)

Wo.

You can listen to 'River' here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xd5BnAqp3gI