Lying in bed after the gig, I was in a dilemma. I was in such a good place, so happy and buzzy, that I didn’t want to go to sleep. On the other hand, I knew that to sleep would be to dream and in dreams I would find myself back in CocoRosieLand.
What a tremendous show this was – a perfect marriage of artist, crowd and venue. In reverse order, the Bloomsbury Ballroom is a recently restored and very plush Art Deco Ballroom in the heart of Bloomsbury, and it just had a great vibe from the moment you went in (albeit that the heavy handed bouncers did their best to spoil it). The crowd were, to a woman, beloved fans, so there were none of the strafes one tends to find at bigger venues, the ones who don’t seem to know why they are there, get horribly drunk and heckle and talk and generally spoil it for everyone else. As with the legendary Scala gig a few years back, there was a lot a love of love in the room, and the volume of noise was quite something.
As for the sisters, they have benefited from almost constant touring since I saw them a few months ago, and the smaller stage suited them. Some of the weaker numbers from the new album have been dropped since earlier in the year.
Both sported tears and rubies drawn onto their faces, and Bianca had drawn on her tradition Victorian-style moustache.
Sierra wore men’s long john’s and rubber wellies with the feet ripped off.
Bianca wore a hat and veil, with very very low rise jeans over big pants.
I was to be found very near the front, gazing up lovingly.
Despite this being the 4th time I have seen them live, they remain as elusive, enigmatic and contradictory as ever. Their act is playful but they maintain an air of seriousness. They come across best in smaller and more intimate venues, but engage little with the audience, yet they invite people up onto the stage until the bouncers intervene, and they are visibly moved by the warmth of the feeling in the room. And what a Bitches Brew they stir up: crotch-grabbing hip hop macho posturing is lesbianically appropriated; toy instruments, eurthymy, opera, harp, piano, imaginary trumpet and beatboxing all go into the pot, but it is not gratuitous, it works. And unlike many artists hovering around what is sometimes referred to as the freak folk scene, they have always avoided whimsy and exude cool
You can start to see CocoRosie as a knowing art project, but then they sing songs about their bastard father breaking up the marriage to their mother, and about the death of their brother. They often wear masks but you feel the songs come from the heart, the disguises allowing them to be more honest.
They seem to be channelling some shamanic, ancient and deep wisdom, but at the same time play with any patronising misconceptions that might lead one to connect this with their part Native American lineage. They are sexy and sexualised but sexually ambiguous. Woe betide anyone who tries to put them into any preconceived box.
After the show Bianca is standing opposite me as I buy my t shirt. She is covered in a film of sweat and with the intensity of the performance. There is nothing I can find to say to her, nothing worth saying. Perhaps I have might have if it had been Sierra, she seems warmer and more open, Bianca is sterner and (I imagine) more pricklish. But that’s the things. Who knows? It is inconceivable to imagine them not being CocoRosie. The documentaries and interviews on the web give the impression that they wake, inspect their hair to see if the fairies have been cutting off their locks in the night again, paint on the tears, pick up some instruments, summon a ghost or two, and start singing, and that they stay like that until bedtime. And I would hate to think that it might not be so.
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