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There is no better way to meet her Nicole SaravakouI think, from the to see her on stage. Because a look at various publications does not reveal anything of substance. All you learn, in other words, is that they are generally and vaguely “talented”: an empty label, in an age where everyone is praised as talented and great. Then, in a crescendo of the lowest journalistic standard, the thing usually belches to gossipy around her famous parents, without the slightest further reference to her voice, her lyrics, the songs she has recorded in her discography. All she seems interested in is some pun about her father – the football player Dimitris Saravakos– or what she wore on such and such a social outing with her lyricist mother Vicky Gerothodorou.
Doing “Walk in the Grove”anyway, even if you noticed those who rushed to take pictures with him Dimitris Saravakos once she entered the space, it is in these very elements where you stand, forgetting the pointless surrounding “noise”: in her voice, in her lyrics, in her pieces. In a imprintthat is, which highlights the Athenian songstress as promising fresh power in the Greek pentagram. Even if not everything worked out; even if some controversial choices were made, which ended up blurring the stigma it (seems to) wish to emit.
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Taking a position behind the microphone of “Alsos”, in front of the musicians who undertook to accompany her –Vasilis Theodorakoglou (keys), Dimitris Christodoulopoulos (electric guitar), John Grigoriou (bass), Makis Alefragkis (drums) & Dimitris Bournis (violin) – Nicole Saravakou started with disarmers bittersweet way, saying “Town Walk”. And other songs of hers followed, such as “Thelo”, “In the City of Speed”, “Solo” and “Recipe”. Which captured a creative vein that likes to run around in current urban field, filtering it through a feminine and at the same time youthful lookwhich is so relatable in its ways Phoebus Delivoriaas well as with one college pop/rock aesthetic American cut. All of them, however, were moments that he defended with persuasion, singing warm and soulfuleven if some verses were probably left meteors in the middle of the general aesthetic navigation, like that e.g. the “And if the cops come, I’ll beat the hell out of it“: what you see and hear, that is, inconsistent nobody with such a setting.
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Having little material of her own, of course, the songwriter tried to enrich the program with arrangements. Here too a first was observed derangement of the coherence of the concert. Preface to “Solo”, so to speak, he told us that finds “too mainstream” writing songs about the boys in your life. Soon after, though, she told us “Lola” and “I’m Not Asking for Much,” leaving me to wonder if in her mind the Kostis Maraveyas it seems indeed as something alternative. On a more sweeping note, she also didn’t opt for anything cheesy, underlit, or even more difficult: all of her arrangements moved on the path of artistic radios, betting on moments that you hear very often in them. Even when he made a stop at Alcinoos Ioannidisfor example, choose her easy straight of “Al Khalili Market”, instead of something more “thorny”, like e.g. the “Zeno”. Element that deepens the debate about mainstream and alternative, because even if we accept the pandom of bouzoukis in Greece, there is a lot of talk about whether or not we have different aspects of the same, basically, mainstream.
Beyond this dimension, however, Saravaku complied right balances in the first part of her appearance in “Alsos”. Maybe a couple of moments escaped her both vocally and in terms of experience necessary (e.g. the “Laika” of Alkisti Protopsaltis, where that “without return” at the end it sounded hollow), he may sometimes have interpreted a little more set and “official” than was necessary (e.g. in “Water in the Boat”), but such things are both natural and expected, especially from a new presence, which is still looking for its pace. More important was the fact that sang “Stereotypes” admirably and from the heart of Dimitra Galani, tying them beautifully with hers “Metro Loves”that he found a personal way to approach “Isaiah’s Bossa Nova” and “It’s All Right With Me” and that she was truly captivating in “I Loved You Here”perfectly communicating the emotion of the piece.
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What finally derailed the walk to the historical theater of Evelpidon was the arrival of Stelios Rokkos as a guest of the evening: an artist who is friendly with the songwriter’s mother, but from the beginning he didn’t seem to fit in with the atmosphere that had been created up to that moment. However, I would not like to be misunderstood: I appreciate the voice of the artist from Lemnos and I find that it holds up nicely over time as a figurehaving his own on stage dynamic – he also showed it in “Alsos”, after all, where he came strapping on his guitar. In my opinion, however, it does not have a repertoire with substance and meaning.
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Even so, however, it might have suited the events better if he had said something more low-key, ballads moments of, e.g. the 1990s sitcom “Maria, Maraki, Mario”. Unfortunately, however, after a duet with Saravaku in the routine “We”, Roccos invest in low level songs, which rocked the level of the evening, plunging it into aesthetic Tartarus. Again good, at least, that it closed with the relatively more decent “I stayed here”which is also loved by the public, as shown by the reactions from the tables in “Alsos” square.
So, after such a hiatus, Saravaku had a difficult task, getting back on stage. In my mind, that is, he needed to pick up the thread of the first part again, so that the concert would continue to represent the world it had unfolded up until then. She, however, wants because she somehow tried to bridge the second part with what Roccos presented, wants because he wanted to persist in a climate of extroversionhe began to sing songs like “Moira Mou Egines” (Andriana Bambali), “Ton Erota Rotaao” (Eleftheria Arvanitaki) and “Na M’Agapas” (Eleni Tsaligopoulou), then reaching “Dynata” (Arvanitaki, again) , in “Seven Cups” (Yiannis Kotsiras) or in “Milo Ya Sena” (Melina Kana, from her collaboration with Thanasis Papakonstantinou).
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In the majority of the assembled world, now, I liked this flow of the concert and at some tables they didn’t take long, in fact, let the ciftetelia begin – even with mechanical movements, which seemed taken from moments of fun on television sets. The whole thing left me, again a blur. And not because Saravaku could not vocally serve the choices she made: some things she did not achieve, but technically he had the background for what he attempted. But she turned into another in order to serve their needs, leaving me to think that she has not defined who she is or who she wishes to be. The songwriter of the first part, with the most pop/rock concerns? One of many introductory “alternative” opening on the next circuit where Stelios Rokkos will close winter performances? Or a budding star of the most modern art sound?
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Personally got tired from the second part: though I found tasteful the options, I didn’t feel like there was any serious reason so that I can listen again to the specific songs by Nicole Saravakou. My ear, on the other hand, stopped back to her own material, which had a scattered presence among the arrangements. A fresh piece called “Thalassa”, which also seeks extroversion, didn’t say anything to me lyrically, but I also noticed “You Don’t”, and “Fairy Tales”.
I’m gone with caution from “Alsos”, but I also kept my original one excitement. He’s got possibilities the young songwriter, even if she’s still looking for more solid footing, sometimes what her lyrics want to say when they go to social issueswhen and what they do her hands on stage, sometimes in the monotone sweet girly way he addresses the world. However, he probably needs to get difficult decisions about artistic identity, in times where the economic side of musical survival in Greece may not even exist away from the range of art radios. I understand. The work of criticism, however, is not to understand, but to say that the forces of Sarawak they shine brightly in the field of melancholy police pop/rockwhich may not find similar commercial luck.
