Old Jerusalem, M.Ou.Co., Porto, 02.10.2021.

Old Jerusalem ©  Afonso Dorido

 

by Raquel Pinheiro

Out of the ordinary, this review took longer than usual. It matches the out of the ordinary, in a good way, concert by Old Jerusalem, Saturday October 2nd at M.Ou.Co, a new hotel in Porto, that has a concert room. The concert come with many firsts, my first time at M.Ou.Co, my first time in a room with so many people close to each other audience since the pandemic, my first Old Jerusalem concert in a while.

Old Jerusalem, that are celebrating their 20th anniversary, presented their eighth album, Certain Rivers in a stripped down version. Francisco Silva, the singer-songwriter behind the moniker played solo, in an intimate concert for voice and acoustic guitar.

Alone upon the stage, Francisco sang from the new album, including its opening song High high up that hill - on the record sang by Peter Broderick - from previous albums, and he also presented us with beautiful renditions of 2/15 (poem by Rabindranath Tagore, music by Mick Turner & Will Oldham Blood, Red Bird (Smog), Shivers (Rowland S. Howard), Forever in My Life (Prince) and Katy song (Mark Kozelek).

The detailed naming of the songs covered is not in vain. One of the things Francisco spoke to us about, before or between songs, was the tradition of handing down, covering, passing along, been inspired by someone else's songs. Picking on and continue giving life to existing songs is both a way to show them to a different audience as well as make them ours.

Music and words share a confessional, warm, feeling, here and there punctuated by humour - Love & Cows - wrapping us in world of beauty, emotions, quiet spoken drama, even if depiced events may be anything but. Love in its many faces, loss of faith (and regaining it in something else?), dreams, youth and its flippancy, all emanate from Francisco's songs or from the ones he choose to cover.

Enhanced, punctuated, accentuated, by the tone, or lack thereof, of the acoustic guitar, voice and words are transported to a land of magic, lifting us along. Old Jerusalem at M.Ou.Co was a beautiful, cherished concert, that, at least in my memory, shall last.