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  Goto Izumi live at Mono in Glasgow



goto izumi at mono

Half of Glasgow seems to be shut but a man with an ear for the unusual can always find something intriguing and entertaining. Something like a woman and her accordion on the lam from Hiroshima. Somebody like Goto Izumi.

Preceded by a documentary that attempted to explain a curiosity, Goto Izumi took to the stage wearing a rabbit's head.  No, I haven't been smoking crack. She took to the stage wearing a rabbit's head and alternated this inspired insanity – others might call it performance art but there was absolutely no pretension in her approach – with the most endearing accordion and voice combination that I have ever heard.  Sweet but never saccharine, her softly sung words easily escaped the stage to become whispers in your ear. I have no idea how she did that but it is, nonetheless, an incontrovertible fact that she could.

Of course, intimacy was only part of Goto Izumi's  spell. Discarding the rabbit head for a blonde wig, she cutely camped up a version of "Cabaret" before enticing a fortunate member of the audience on stage for a little dance number. I mean, you just don't see that kind of thing in Glasgow every day. And certainly never on a Monday night.

As the red stage lights faded, it duly came to pass that I discovered that three quarters of Glasgow was now closed.  There's only one thing a man can do in such circumstances and so, without further ado, I sought out an angel with azure eyes.



Reviewer:
Review Date: August 8 2011


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