Penguin cafe at The Epstein Theatre, Liverpool. Photograph by Ian D. Hall
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
There may well have been more instruments on stage than you would find in the front window of a well-stocked music shop and more performers on stage than you would notes on a piano but each one was more than needed to give the rich, almost delicate sound demanded by the ensemble of musicians that make up the very talented and very cool Penguin Café.
Since The Epstein re-opened its doors to the public, it has had a few very special nights of music within its hallowed hall but with Penguin Café in the building, it seemed to take on that extra special meaning, a triumph waiting to happen in glorious sound and with the kind of delivery you would expect from Arthur Jeffes orchestrating the proceedings as if the spirit of his father was in the theatre clapping along with an audience that at times could barely contain their glee.
There was certainly a small chill that ran excitedly up the spine as one watched Arthur Jeffes and Penguin Café perform, not just several of their tracks from their new album The Red Book, but several of Simon Jeffes’ Penguin Café Orchestra arrangements, including the opener Telephone and Rubber Band, the superb Bean Fields, Perpetuum Mobile and the fantastic Swing The Cat.
It is this new incarnation, the reimagining of the soul of Penguin Café Orchestra, suitably and honour bound to be called simply Penguin Café, that the 21st Century is revolving around though and with musicians such as the divine Des Murphy, the inspirational Andrew and Rebecca Waterworth and the genius of Violin player Oli Langford to have stood shoulder to shoulder and instruments primed as if waiting for the call to arms, the new tracks laid sown sounded beautiful, edgy and stellar. Tracks such as Catania, the brilliant 1420, Aurora, Solaris and Black Hibiscus were greeted as warmly and with much fondness as if Simon Jeffes were on stage and his son Arthur watching with a glint of the future in his eyes.
With the evening coming to soon an ending, perhaps it was more than fitting that one of the encores of a great night of instrumentation and incredible musicianship was the track dedicated to the senior statesman, the man whose legacy still continues. In the track Harry Piers, everything that was great about the evening was summed up by this gentle nod to the past.
A triumph of musical complexity, just stunning!
Ian D. Hall