#Devendra Banhart @Paradiso

I’ve been pretty busy the first two weeks of December. Monday 30th November: Patrick Watson. Friday 4th December: Devendra Banhart. Wednesday 9th December: Paul McCartney (!).
To me, that is quite special, going to that many concerts in such a short amount of time. So I’ve got some catching up on blogging to do! First Devendra then!

On a cold friday evening I was off to see Devendra Banhart at Paradiso. I’ve only discovered this guy about a year ago, and after only listening to one song of his, I immediately knew that this would be my next ‘music-crush’. His weird kind of folk (or freakfolk) was something I had never heard before, and I liked it. There’s only one Devendra, man!

And that was one thing I immediately noticed when walking into the venue. This was an audience of one in a million; it was the weirdest, most diverse audience I’ve seen at a gig. There were old and ‘new’ hippies (kind of like Devendra’s own style), alternative kids, your standard 40-ers, and there were few people like me. It was awesome, I did not feel like a left-out anymore, because these people were not standard as wel!

Alrighty, back to Devendra. He did not bring a support band, which I kind of regretted. Would have loved him to bring a Spanish kind of band/artist or something like that. Anyway, this did not mean the gig was short. He played over 20 songs, which was way more than I expected him to and more than I could have hoped for.
Sir Banhart played beyond expectations. The moment he walked on stage and played Long Haired Child, I was in seventh heaven. Dear god, I could not have wished for a better opening song. After playing two more songs, the band left the stage for Devendra to play some solo songs. He played one of my favourite songs of the new album, Angelika! Acoustic! Absolutely awesome. Actually, he played a lot of my favourite songs of his. Only one I missed was At the Hop, but despite that it was a perfect setlist.

The encore was one of the best encores I’ve ever seen: Carmensita! I love that song, and the audience was rocking out as well which was cool to see. And so did I, which is quite an achievement on Devendra’s behalf. Rats followed, which took the rock level up another notch, but the real burst out was Seahorse. There couldn’t have been a better way to end a show like this than with Seahorse. The entire audience was rocking and dancing and swaying along to the music, completely in ecstacy. The climax in that song is incredible.
And with Seahorse, Devendra and his Grogs proved that they’ve grown as a liveband. See you next time, mr. Banhart?