hearsay

I was a little confused and unsure about José González playing the Vista movie theater last week. I guess it is an appropriate venue: he is big enough now to fill it up, and his soft-spoken songs are great but can create some pretty tired and sore legs in standing-room-only venues. Hearing that it sold out, I was worried I’d be staring at a speck of light from the back of the theater, so I showed up early… ok, on time, and ended up front & center in a spot that was closer to him than the last time I saw him at Hotel Cafe.

He was good as ever. His voice is just incredible. Oh wait, I should mention Death Vessel who opened. Actually you can just pretend I was talking about Death Vessel, because his voice was awesome as well. It was so feminine-sounding though, it was driving me nuts. And he was so shy that he wasn’t talking between songs, so it wasn’t until the end of his set that I finally got to hear whether he had a woman’s voice outright or if it was just his singing voice. I forgot which one it was.

José was incredible. No this time I’m really talking about him. He played a similar assortment of songs to when I last saw him, and I still think the highlights are his “Heartbeats” cover and “Crosses.” This time the Kylie Minogue cover, “Hand On Your Heart” sounded great too. There were a few songs I wasn’t familiar with, I think 1 or 2 of them were new, and another one was a cover that I didn’t catch who it was by. When he announced there were 2 songs left, the capacity crowd groaned, to which he countered, “They’re both very good.”

And they were.

: Death Vessel - Deep in the Horchada :
: José González - Suggestions :
: José González - Hand on Your Heart (video) :