CSN&Y EXPERIENCE. A celebration of Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young. With Jono Tait, Nick Catto, Matt Catto and James Smith. Last seen at Café Roux in Noordhoek.
MEGAN CHORITZ reviews
It was their second performance in front of a live audience, and we were taken up, absorbed into the music, and floated along in the magic of sheer musical harmony and collaboration. The magic happened the other night at Café Roux in Noordhoek and I was lucky to be there as witness.
Jono, Nick, Matt and James are hugely accomplished musicians with tons of experience despite their youth, and family histories of music. That doesn’t guarantee that they should work brilliantly together in a CSN&Y way, but they do.
With each song they produce gorgeous harmonies, and beautiful music, and they make it look incredibly easy and smooth. From the well-known and quaint Our House, to the ragged and political Ohio, to the plaintive and introspective Helpless, each song is given time, attention and the perfect balance that the original artists created on stage. What helps these four even more is that they understand and honour the collaborative process and delight in each other’s company. They are a quartet of harmony. I also loved that they switched around and different members took the lead depending on the song’s needs. None of that crazy ego stuff that CSN&Y were known for offstage.
Songs that are often huge and challenging
I am not a huge fan of tribute shows where the artists and musicians pretend to be the people whose songs they sing. Here, this is nowhere to be seen. These artists are purely, almost innocently themselves, sharing a love of CSN&Y music, harmonies and lyrics. They achieve a purity that is both nostalgic and deeply moving, with songs that are often huge, and challenging.
Jono’s need to move between five guitars notwithstanding (he explains why), the show moves swiftly from song to song, with relaxed, almost intimate banter from all four of them. I loved hearing them chat and connect with the audience in a simple, yet totally natural way, a constant reminder that they were themselves, and not pretending to be the musicians whose songs they were honouring.
I am a CSN&Y fan. I was delighted to know almost all the songs, and was encouraged to mouth the words, even sing along to the loud ones. But you don’t have to be to delight in the live magic of the music and the players.
I don’t know where they’ll be next, or when, but keep your eyes open for their gigs, and then go and immerse yourself.
WS
