Humming Along With Riopy
In person gigs are back! It was great to experience some French improvisation (or sequences) with pianist Riopy at Turner Sims, Southampton. Amazing he made what can be quite a traditional venue intimate and got the audience to talk to him (and sing with each other!) Vive la France for conquering traditional British reserve. (Even if we were less impressed by his description of our harbour as ‘beautiful’ — audible groans of pain from the audience)…
I had no idea who Riopy was or what he was about, before I spotted a promotion of his first UK tour by Serious. He’d started in London and was finishing in Southampton. Having battled the Turner Sims website to find the details, I booked and was off!
It looked like a full house. Opening for Riopy was sweet Adam Naas who strummed some delightful songs and chatted away to us between songs. Even though he claimed his set was ‘depressing’, he was both charming and talented — and how great it was that we got to experience two really talented musicians on one night. His songs had a really dreamy and reflective quality — and he finished with a Chet Baker cover. Hooray!
Riopy was wearing the obligatory black jazz turtleneck, but turned out to be incredibly chatty and emotional. He encouraged us to clap loudly and make some noise to encourage him. We got a story about how he’d created a song under incredible pressure, and it was beautiful. Also that amazing meeting with Chris Martin, who gifted him a piano! And his stories of struggle to achieve positive day to day mental health, create beautiful art and manage family life. I loved that Riopy checked whether there were any babies in the audience before encouraging us to clap as loud as we could. Not to mention that hot take that he never wanted to be in the UK, ever, but ended up living in Oxford, and even has a British passport now.
One of the most relaxed and friendly gigs I’ve been to — we got to hear sequences such as ‘I Love You’ and hum along to, even harmonise if we so desired, to ‘Call To Arms’ and share our dream holiday destinations. Riopy was in raptures that there were so many musical people in one room on one evening — such a responsive artist and his enjoyment of music (in all of its forms) was deep. (Some relief too that none of us started scat singing!) Bonus gig points for uniting strangers and breaking down social barriers — Bono-like connections!
There should have been lights, but there weren’t due to technical issues. It didn’t matter — although the artists were strangely plunged into deep gloom, the performances blasted their surroundings and drew us all in. Wonderfully only Riopy was miced, the piano was producing all of its own sound — unmiced and totally acoustic. Sublime!
My only concern is that, at points, Riopy shared vulnerable life struggles with alcohol from the past. A lot of the audience laughed. Like being bad at Maths in the UK, please can we make drinking too much unacceptable. Riopy did admit that he was trying to compete, to outdrink the British (and well couldn’t). Nothing against social drinking or pub culture, but I wish drinking too much and getting drunk wasn’t such a badge of ‘British’ pride. Admirably Riopy now pursues a healthy, dry and holistic life style — and we should have clapped much louder for this.
