November 22, 2024.
This evening of Friday, November 22, it was at Silex that we had to spend it. Located opposite the misty and still snow-covered banks of the Yonne, the performance hall welcomed two of the most exciting groups of the moment, The Cinelli Brothers and Eddie 9V, a double ticket which had already traveled the roads of France at the end of 2023.
Coming to defend their excellent new album, “Almost Exactly”, it is an understatement to say that the Cinelli Brothers excited the audience. What is most striking about them? Their chemistry. Four strong personalities, very different, but complementary and which, beyond their technical skills, allows them to display quite exceptional collective charisma. In the role of the flamboyant frontman, busy on keyboards, guitar and lead vocals, Marco Cinelli. On bass or guitar, a reliable and solid anchor, Stephen Giry brings his touch of virtuosity. On harp or guitar, Tom Julian-Jones guarantees a more earthy approach, fundamentally blues and rock ‘n’ roll. As for the slender Alessandro Cinelli, he delivers a beat full of groove and robustness.
Like the Beatles or the Band, to whom they have boundless admiration, the Cinelli Brothers are all singers and multi-instrumentalists, which gives a lot of humanity, power and variety to their performances. This is how they begin their set with the gothic-gospel chorus of Prayerall voices out, before switching to the sunny soul of Dozen roses (in the meantime, Tom Julian-Jones went from harmonica to SG and Stephen Giry from bass to Telecaster). Marco Cinelliwho speaks in impeccable French and doesn’t let go of the spectators an inch (presentation of the pieces, looks, etc.), swaps his keyboards for his emblematic Eastwood Tuxedo brass (rocky saturation, reverb, tremolo) before diving into a very raspy chicagoan blues (Save mepretext for a beautiful harmo solo then psychedelic guitar). The atmosphere is Latin with Ain’t blue but I sigh (what a title! – In addition to being a remarkable singer and composer, Marco Cinelli is a superb lyricist) where Giry delivers a spectacular guitar solo (he brushes his strings with the thumb of his right hand and presses his little finger on the knobs of volume and tone to vary the sounds and generate violin effects; places its bottleneck on the lower part of its strap, thus being able to seize it in a flash combines resonances in open strings, sculptures of; wah-wah and feedback). Julian-Jones grabs the microphone for a beautiful tribute to Albert King (You’re gonna need me).
Return to stone rock with Lucky star whose irresistible melody makes the whole room go crazy. Alessandro Cinelliin socks, mustache and shaggy mullet, with the exhausted grace and pale face of a musician on tour, leaves his drums for the bass. Giry, always impeccable, takes his place on the brooms for the striking black blues Long cigarettesingle released in 2022, before continuing with Nobody’s foolwritten “in London, above an Irish pub” and sung in a deep voice à la Tom Waits. The finale is grandiose, soulful, sexy, psychedelic, before the last piece, the enormous Lucky starwhich Marco starts with impressive layers of saturated organ, supported by his brother who plays the conga with his left hand while providing snare drum, toms and cymbals with his right hand. What musicality! The public is demanding an encore and the hour allocated to Londoners is already over. Big favorite, unanimously shared and widely discussed during the intermission.
Change register with Eddie 9V who adopts a more classic and stripped-down instrumentation, but no less effective: his brother Kelly Lane on the bass, the faithful Chad Mason on keyboards (alongside whom he spent most of the show, ultra-accomplices) and the impressive drummer David Greenalso from Atlanta. The opening could not be clearer: “We’re here to play you the blues!” » Mission accomplished with distinction, the group delivering a nervous, harsh and raw 1h30 set, with tight arrangements (impossible to transcribe as is the rich orchestrations of the last album).
Eddie impresses with the intensity of his singing and his guitar playing. Regardless of the pains, the approximations and the fluctuating tuning of his battered Fender Esquire (a Telecaster with a single microphone, the kind of guitar that is unforgiving as it embellishes nothing), the Georgian plays like a boxer distributing the blows, taking all the risks (and joking about his own mistakes), constantly moving, multiplying vocal interjections and rhythmic arabesques. Above all, don’t let yourself be fooled by your apparent indiscipline. Eddie is, at least in part, deceptively messy. This workaholic, who spends his life on the road or in the studio, doesn’t leave much to chance. His rhythmic arrangements are particularly perfect (the musicians know each other by heart – a simple glance and everyone reacts immediately), as are his dynamic variations which demonstrate an exceptional mastery of tension-relaxation.
Behind his dark glasses, his improbable white cap and his chaotic stage performance, Eddie 9V delivers an uninhibited performance of exceptional power. He revisits the major milestones of his repertoire: Beg borrow and steal which opened “Capricorn” and with which he began the set, the dark soul blues Little black flies or 3AM in Chicagostretched like a bow, the funky The come up, where the instruments make their entrance one after the other and which describes with humor “the delicious feeling that grips us when we make the liberating decision to leave one person for another”the rowboat, very second line, Yella alligator or the atmospheric Missouri and its stunningly beautiful melody. He grants wide ranges of expression to Chad Mason, signatory of brilliant choruses (quotation of the riff of Use meharmonized on the guitar) and has fun with a few covers: Albert King (whose legacy we can still appreciate to what extent contemporary blues, Travelin’ mantaken from “Little Black Flies”), Robert Johnson (Ramblin’ on my mind), Al Green (Driving wheel and its Dantesque riff, punctuated by an impressive drum solo from David Green) or Howlin’ Wolf, whose vocal fury fits him like a glove (Miss James as a final encore, exhumed from the little-known “Message To The Young” from 1971).
Of course, the new album is highlighted: the magnificent title song Saratogalet people Halo (which passes the ramp well in electric, despite the absence of real choirs), hats off to JJ Cale (Red river) or the enormous Delta (impossible not to shudder while listening to his haunted falsettos). One reminder and it’s already over; when it’s good, you never see the time passing. Eddie 9V lets the South speak, its violence, its crudeness, but also its humanity and its crazy generosity. Big favorite, repeat…
Text : Ulrick Parfum
Photos © Anja Perfume
