Special Showcase of Vijay Kishore’s new EP

Vijay Kishore played an exclusive gig to a privileged Birmingham audience in an acoustic solo showcase on Sunday at The Symphony Hall. As a prelude to the Seth Lakeman gig which was taking place in the main arena, Vijay played some tracks from his latest EP against the backdrop of the busy second city, bringing a mesmerising calmness to the crowd with his impressive vocals.

I turned up at The Symphony Hall to catch some ‘off the cuff’ music, after reading a facebook post that Vijay Kishore would be playing a set at The Symphony Hall, late in the afternoon last Sunday. I have seen Vijay perform twice before, once at Shambala, where he managed to ground me to my spot and just listen to the set, despite me being stage manager and extremely busy and stressed. The other occasion was last year’s Moseley Folk Festival, another mesmerising glimpse at this artist at work.

Vijay Kashore is a singer songwriter whose vocals, for some reason, remind me of Roy Orbison. It might be his range or the sorrowful high notes he reaches, or just the stillness with which he meanders round a song building up to powerful crescendos and gentle lullabies combined  Another comparison that springs to mind is Turin Brakes, as he combines such strong vocals with folk driven guitar. With such strong delivery and energy created doing a solo set, I can’t wait to hear some of the music from the forthcoming album. Don’t underestimate him though or try and box him up in a folk package. Some of the stuff on his myspace and website pages represents a much rockier side, some stuff Beatle-esque and Indie sounding. ‘I done it again’ even sounding like a good travellers/ surfer soundtrack Jack Johnson style; ‘Give us a smile’ reminded me of Coldplay or Keane.
Vijay is an artist who likes to speak through the music, and as he said himself in between songs at the Symphony Hall, if you want to see a full picture of what he is about, visit his myspace, where you can check out some new tracks and have a look at another extremely talented artists hailing from the Midlands. You can also check out some tour dates so that you can hear his amazing voice for yourself.

This entry was posted on May 22nd, 2009 and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or Trackback from your own site.