REVIEW: Bilal at the egg
All photos by Tom Miller
“It wasn’t an absence of technology, but a mastery over it in order to emphasize the wide range of innately human feeling that Bilal uncovers.”
Inside the walls of Swyer Theatre in The Egg, birds chirped happily, water gurgled as it ran calmly through a brook, and leaves rustled in the trees as a gentle wind blew. It was one of the first chilly nights of October, but Bilal and his band brought the warm energy of Spring as they began the first night of their tour for his new record, Adjust Brightness.
The crowd whooped and hollered as he waltzed onto the stage, starting immediately with a track off the new album called “Sunshine.” The warm glow that traveled across the space was finally articulated as he crooned, “You are my sunshine, you got my world starting to bloom.” With such a gorgeously sensorial introduction, the night had already been framed with sonic beauty.
“It’s a magical moment here,” Bilal explained in between songs. With it being the very first night of the tour, he told the crowd, “You get to see us work it out…live!” Audience members chuckled as Bilal adjusted the settings on his mic, setting up the effects for the next track. His guitar player also adjusted settings constantly, both with a pedal and a laptop, queuing up sounds of harps and splitting the sound of the guitar to create a spacey, all-encompassing atmosphere. Meanwhile, Bilal moved his echoes up and down to fit the mood, generating a large, dark tone one minute and a simple, soulful note the next.
It was in the control of these effects that Bilal brought human emotion into a technologically-heavy show. When he spoke in our pre-show preview about creating something that AI couldn’t mimic, I hadn’t quite processed his meanings. Now, it was clear. It wasn’t an absence of technology, but a mastery over it in order to emphasize the wide range of innately human feeling that Bilal uncovers.
Part of Bilal’s emotional interpretation seemed to involve embodying different characters through his lyrical delivery. His posture, movements, and even dance moves changed as he flitted between vocal ranges. A deep bass was met with slow movements in which he stepped outside of his joyful self and inhabited an older, more sinister sound. The guitar riffs would become louder, deeper, sadder to match the melancholic lyrics. It was almost like a spaceship landed at the outside of the aptly named “Quantum Universe,” in which he woefully hoped, “In the language of the universe, there are no words, only love.”
While that dark energy took over the lower range, the higher range seemed to come from a fast-paced, rigid jazz artist: his tone was nasally, his vocals quick, his head bopping to the side on a fervent beat as his arms moved in similarly strict motions. He was focused and impassioned. Then, finally, there was the middle of the range, in which Bilal found his natural sound. It was melodic, sweet, and warm. It was relaxed and slow, flowing with the band as he moved across the stage in a liquid motion, unafraid to get down to the strings and throw a playful shrug to the audience. Again, this was the beauty of a Bilal show: it was so methodical, so well-crafted, yet so experimental, creative, and free.
To close out the set, the band played a track from 2010 called “All Matter.” It was a perfect sum of each part, with Bilal sliding up and down his incredible range, taking a step back to let the instrumentals put on an absolute rock show mid-song. As the audience shouted their approval, it seemed even he was sad to see the jamming come to a close as he re-entered the song to close it out.
The show could not be over yet, of course—not without hearing “Soul Sista.” After a very brief break, the group bounded back into the room to play Bilal’s greatest hit. Excited audience members danced and sang along as everyone soaked up the final moments of this incredible show. Then, just like that, Bilal and the band thanked the fans profusely, and gracefully exited, taking the magic with them. Bits and pieces of the moment still shimmered in the air as we stood up from our seats, and ambled out into the lobby. That show, the room seemed to wordlessly agree, had been a true work of art.
