Last Saturday, we went to the Tauron Life Festival Oświęcim to see, for the first time, LP performing in the open air. Festivals are not our favorite place to experience live music, but in this case we were even more curious of what would happen there. We couldn’t wait for this evening. And?
© Łukasz Ratajczyk, courtesy of the author and Dzień dobry Łódź
SHE RAISED THE SKY OF OŚWIĘCIM
Knock, knock, knock! Guests are there!
Gate, open up to welcome them!
Who’s that and what is it here for? Oh, of course, it’s my body. And, look, here it goes again: said body, dragged here by this twisted soul of mine. It came for the ultimate beauty, for a heartbreak, for some games to be played by the fates (I saw it coming, and it’s not a first). It came for the drink of Life. But was it, or was it a deadly kiss?
It all started swelling with “Muddy Waters,” deeply below the ground. It always does. You can feel it in your feet, as though you’re sinking, and you are. Second after second, it goes up to your fingertips until it reaches your earlobes. You’re curious, and even when she walks this catwalk, which is peculiar when it comes to “Muddy Waters” (now, isn’t it – and then it isn’t at all), you can feel the trap closing around your ankles. You’re tied up. I am. Was. Would like to still be.
Then it starts for you for real, even though “Strange” as a second song used to be a stronger choice. It would grasp your emotions and skyrocket them. “Other People” cools you down instead, but it really doesn’t matter, nothing would break the spell of “Muddy Waters,” especially if you came there unaware. Not my case, nor K’s case. This time we were perfectly prepared, we thought. Yet as the set went on, she sang each song even more forcefully, pulling us all towards herself. At a festival?… Those tones, colors, the need, the urge – it all took us higher than we ever expected. And not only us. Why did JD supported her with the most beautiful guitar in “Levitator”? Why did Eli do his best drums for “Suspicion” by far? Why, why did she sing “Into The Wild” as if we were back in Radio Trójka? You could think that she’s rather a club performer, way too intimate for stadiums. She isn’t, we all saw it clearly there – her magnetic charisma outshined this big scene, with what looked like no effort at all. And when she took that mic stand, held it as if it was a scepter… [cut]
The shadows were lengthening, the outlines sharpening in the dazzling stage lights. And a coincidence – a beautiful sunset designed especially for “Tokyo Sunrise,” with her breathtaking improvisation at the very end. By that time the power of her lungs she revealed there, the singing power of her whole body really, had already blown us away more than ever before. And this unreal power defined that little universe she created for this one hour or so. We took it home the next day, but first to our hotel. We soaked it with a glass of wine in a dim lobby.
What is it with those crystal clear vocals of hers, why are they a highway to a clusters of some long-time-no-see emotions? Be it “You Want It All,” be it “When We’re High,” be it “Up Against Me,” whatever, really. But then again, is it only that? Is it enough to raise the sky as she did in Oświęcim? (Oh, she mighty, mighty!) Well, I don’t think so, it’s something much more.
What was it? Because I need to know.
And, yes, I want it all.
You won’t get out!
The gate is closed.