When I walked into the Cornerstone to see Novo Amor live, I was greeted inside by a crowd-wide shush, signaling Gia Margaret’s arrival on stage. It was perfect timing.
Every microphone has ivy leaves growing around its stand, branching off onto the floor of the stage. Gia sings quietly; any word could disrupt the aura surrounding her. Almost gleaming, her voice seems to brighten the room. She speaks just as softly, exclaiming with unfathomable tenderness: “I like Oakland. It feels like a gentle place.” Laughter discreetly resounds in the room. She picks the first few notes for “Sugar,” but stumbles on her own words and remarks: “I didn’t practice this one guys, let’s be real.” Everyone cheers to her honesty, and claps to encourage her to keep playing. She tells us she’s sick, and she will have to end the set early. She gives us a final taste of what she can do, singing “Birthday,” and to do so she invites some friends to play with her: Novo Amor. “They’re really nice people,” she continues. As she ends her set, members in the audience scream “feel better,” and she walks off with a “thank you.”
The room is crowded: predictably, the concert is sold out. With all the white guys in flannel shirts and beanies who live in Berkeley, how could it not be?
When Novo Amor decide it’s time to come on stage, they do so quietly, enwrapped in soft blue and green lights. Violin and guitar open their set, the band intermingling their sounds as in a lively yet softly spoken conversation. “Emigrate” is the song they open with, as John Meredith-Lacey sings in his distinctive falsetto, “hardly anything, hardly anything works now,” and the crowd is soon enraptured.
For the second song, most band members casually switch instruments, Meredith-Lacey swiftly moving from an acoustic guitar to a nearby keyboard: “Birthplace” so begins. For “Utican,” the drums and a tambourine take center stage – the lights frantically follow the exhilarating beat, generating a visual form of pathetic fallacy; the crowd is absorbed into the momentum generated by the sound, and swings from side to side as lights bounce off everyone’s head and transform the room in a sea of bright colours.
Novo Amor’s sound, clean and refined in recording, gains a rawness live that adds dimension to every song. The sound of “Anniversary” is almost entirely altered: the falsetto disappears, and instead it earns hints of old school rock which increase the energy of the song altogether. It’s more instrumental, in a way, more cohesive.
Ambient sounds crowd the room for the next track, as violin and the slow tingle of the electric guitar contribute to the atmosphere. As the strings begin to vibrate, the crowd cheers in excitement the moment it recognizes the intro to “State Lines.” There is no better way to describe its flavor than by comparing it to the soundscape of a place after a storm, calm yet still fueled by the tumult that has just ceased.
Only now Meredith-Lacey speaks for the first time: “Hi everyone. Hello Berkeley.” He later proceeds to comment on the infamous Berklee School of Music, convinced of its location in the Bay Area. As the crowd laughs at his foreign naivety, he remarks: “Have I said something stupid?”
In a strange mid-show Q&A session, someone screams: “How are you feeling?” to which he responds: “Pretty tired, but hyped. We flew from Wales yesterday.” A hum from the audience signals their compassion and admiration for the inevitably jetlagged musicians, powering through a show with their minds set at a different time clock. They have never played “Seneca” live, but they decide to give it a try. A loud applause follows.
For “Terraform,” a surprise ensued – the guitarist showcases his falsetto, as the violinist casually alternates between his instrument and the nearby keyboard with unbelievable smoothness.
Closing with “From Gold,” Meredith-Lacey pauses for a second to admit: “pretty odd standing in front of 500 people,” and silence fills the room as they tune their instruments. “I’m very good at awkward silences,” he exclaims; the crowd quickly solves the problem, launching into a sequence of shouts, claps, and whistles. It was an appropriate end to the show in which the atmosphere, moving from melancholic to hopeful, demanded both moments of necessary quiet and subsequent roars of appreciation.
Article and Photos by Marta Meazza