How FKA Twigs has set the bar for pop acts: A story from Montreux Jazz Festival
Why do we gush over beautiful views as if they aren’t available to us every day of the week? Venture for an hour and I’m sure you’ll find one, and yet we greet them like the introductions to our favourite songs, elated, flooded with love and longing. That’s the feeling I have every time I let my gaze wander in Montreux. Mountains jet out of Lake Geneva like standing to attention, saluting passers by with the utmost respect. The water swills, peaceful in its movement. I have seen a beautiful view before, and yet still I stand and gush at the horizon, something that has truly set the bar for all the others I may encounter in the future.
I take it in at the Lake Stage, one of two paid stages at the Montreux Jazz Festival. Imagine the sight I’ve just described, but with a music venue popped on top of it. Open air. The stage standing ceremonial, the lead, with the mountains and the water its faultless backing band. E Street wishes they could be half as stunning as this. Altogether, the Lake Stage looks like the sort of thing Van Gogh would have painted if he’d popped some half-decent tunes down that severed lughole.
The evening started with Jamie XX. He took to the stage a lone soldier, nothing but himself, his decks and a camera, trying to get uncanny valley shots of the crowd, projected onto the screens behind him, showing a dystopian image of the audience. The bass in that kick rattled so damn hard I would have worried about the mountains crumbling had they not stood for centuries.
I am an avid cynic with the word perfect, but this moment came pretty close. XX’s music, paired with that view, surrounded by the good people who attend this festival… It’s hard not to feel overwhelmed, but something lingered.
Clouds started to hang low, gently kissing the tops of mountains before swallowing them completely. The wind picked up, and Jamie XX’s stage lights seemed to shine brighter as the day grew darker. Next came the rain, first in drips, then in drops, then in buckets. In any other setting, it would have dampened the atmosphere, but not here. In the hot Swiss sun, the cold rain was a welcome surprise, alleviating the crowd somewhat and amping things up to 11.
It persisted until the set closed and seemed to fizzle out as Jamie XX brought things to an end (this ending was strange, though). Following a set of unrelenting bass and mixed samples, XX decided to see things out with a ten-minute monologue from Marvin Gaye. It was over the instrumental of ‘What’s Going On?’ The music teased that iconic chorus, but it never came, as Gaye continued speaking and preaching instead. There’s probably a message in there somewhere, one that I missed, as I struggled squeezing my oversized head through the arm hole of a rain poncho.
The gap between Jamie XX and the headliner, FKA Twigs, was longer than it has been on most other nights. The usual half-hour interval was replaced with one of over an hour, but this wasn’t due to the headliner exhibiting diva-like behaviour, as so many of her predecessors will have done previously at this festival, it was step one in many of her genius, the intricate details that made this set not only one of the greatest of the festival, but a stand-out pop performance in a time where the genre seems to be everywhere. Talk about making noise in a loud market, this was something else.
The delay was for one reason: light. As the rain subsided and those low clouds rose, we were blessed with another glimpse of that stunning view, still standing pretty on the Montreux skyline. Gorgeous to see, but a hindrance if you’ve created a performance that uses lights as an integral factor of your storytelling. During the interval, it seems a million other bulbs were added to the stage, along with a scaffolding set which resembled the stage design for the ‘Cell Block Tango’ number in Chicago. It was only once the sun set that fans could see all of this in its full glory, and only then did Twigs start the show.
It’s hard to recall individual moments from these 90 minutes. The general concept of a gig went out the window, as this was all elevated to something else. With a host of backing dancers, Twigs used her music as the loose plot for an abstract story, a play that the crowd attempted to piece together as it was happening. The general gig format of: song-pause-clap-song was cast into Lake Geneva; this was akin to a theatre production, one where you take in the whole thing before making a peep.
The only time the audience was reminded that they were watching a gig was a brief moment when Twigs paused the show to introduce some of her dancers. This led to her effectively wing manning one of said dancers in a bid to get them the number of an adoring fan in the front row. It was a fun moment and a nice breath of levity during what was an incredibly intense show.
I have never before seen an artist understand their stage more than FKA Twigs did here. Some songs required the entire dancing entourage, each of them taking up their own corner, delivering something different, something in itself awe-inspiring, but that joins with the others to create a mosaic of artistic excellence. Meanwhile, other songs were more stripped back, as they saw only one or two dancers acting out some kind of choreographed story on stage, or Twigs stood alone, singing serenely and still filling that stage despite being the only person on it. Nothing was an accident during these 90 minutes; every single second was well thought out and meticulous, and the result was nothing short of a miracle.
She closed the show in tears. During a performance which is made up of vocals, bass, dancing, acting, lights and set design, she decided to round things off with one light, no dancers, just her, delivering a stellar performance of ‘Cellophane’, reminding fans why they adore her in the first place: those killer vocals.
This wasn’t just good, this set the bar. Pop dominates at the minute, the charts and the industry is flooded with talent, and artists have their separate approaches to how they should tackle a performance, but what FKA Twigs did at Montreux was the perfection of it. She showed people how to deliver a gig in a way which is fun and intense, escapist but also deeply moving. The rain held off until she left the stage, and when the heavens opened once again, it was a welcome cool-off.
FKA Twigs’ set is the Montreux skyline. I have seen a view before in the same way I’ve seen a great gig, but nothing compares to this. The music was familiar, as was the environment and the atmosphere, and yet still I stood and gushed, this was something that has set the bar for all other shows to come.
