Having been at the 24th WGT in Leipzig on May 2015, when Luis Vasquez last visited London, I jumped at the opportunity to see The Soft Moon so soon again in London. I was prepared for a memorable gig, following the success of the band since the release of the debut homonymous album in 2010. This was the first time I was seeing the band performing live and the experience was better than I expected, but let me take things from the beginning.
Ellll –Opening act for ‘The Soft Moon’
Respecting fully the announced stage times, Ellll a.k.a Ellen King appeared on stage at the upper floor of Electrowerkz and filled the air with drone/noise ambient sounds. Ellll is a musician based in Cork city, Ireland. Last year she opened for Lust of Youth, Carter Tutti Void and Tim Hacker while this year she also participated with a live show in Cork Film Festival. The beginning and the end of her show at Electrowerkz were made in awkwardness as no greeting was extended to the audience. Her set was not accompanied by visuals but this didn’t lessen the mystifying atmosphere that the music created. The transitions between the tracks were made seamlessly and this gave the impression that we listened to one lengthy piece with many alterations. The audience warmly applauded Ellll at the end of her show as everyone enjoyed the introduction she made to The Soft Moon that followed.
Music as the sonic equivalent of a constructivist painting
We didn’t have to wait for too long before The Soft Moon appeared on stage and started their show with ‘Black‘ from the latest album ‘Deeper‘ and ‘Dead Love’ from the debut homonymous album of the band, drawing us in a sonic maze with an energy only comparable to that of a
whirlpool. To our delight Luis Vasquez, has not stopped writing songs (as he had stated in the past) after the release of ‘Zeros‘ and he performed all the songs during this gig, with the energy of a swirling tornado. His movements reminded me of the image of hard working people in factories. Overall the performing style made clear, the somehow autobiographical and self-referential nature of the pieces which express Luis’ own sincere suffocating and
dark feelings. While observing his movements as he was playing the guitar and when he produced these agonizing vocals full of passion and intensity, I noticed that everything was done in a posture resembling a struggling organism…struggling to 
speak, struggling to express the complexity of feelings, struggling to face the world in all its ugliness and vulnerability, struggling to contain but also communicate anything more concrete than a ‘suffocating’ loud breath! Luis is an emotionally strong performer which somehow manages to escape our attention even when he is standing right in front of us. This seems to be done intentionally in order to make us focus more on the atmosphere that is being created. The Soft Moon offer a weird spectacle which can only be 
understood as someone that makes a momentary appearance in order to give a shout about something before he withdraws to its lair… In order to understand how the band is working with the shadows, your attention needs to just shift a few times between the individual musicians and the whole stage as a picture, somehow appearing through and disappearing from them. These shadows are sometimes real, created from stage lighting and other times they are conceptually created when Luis introduces a song by saying “…this was supposed to be my suicide song…but I’m still here…“. Luis was joined by session musicians for live shows and there is theatricality also on what concerns the appearances of Luigi Pianezzola (bass) and Matteo Vallicelli (drums).
In addition to this, one more interesting quality was revealed to me during this gig. Based on the artwork of their album covers, the band seems to have a preference for constructivist art. I could never have imagined that this aspect could somehow be present at their gig. And yet, the 
lighting and Luis’ motions, created a spectacle in front of us,that resembled an animated painting of Kazimir Malevich. The photos that you see, captured this strange (to me) phenomenon and I can assure you that the images you see have not been edited or ‘shot’ with the intention to blur motion. Somehow, in front of our eyes The Soft Moon, appeared at one moment through the shadows only to fully deconstruct their image the next moment, with multiple ways and with the help of stage lighting. I haven’t seen any other band succeeding at this even with the use of sophisticated stage lighting. Additionally, at times the musicians seemed to have almost completely disappeared and only the outline of their forms was visible to us as a ‘negative’ space within the whole image of the stage. Just as a Picasso painting can only be deciphered after looking at all the shapes that are on it, the Soft Moon can only take some sort of ‘concrete form’ only after 
watching ‘the bigger picture’…that is, the whole stage.
I was glad that the sound was very carefully engineered throughout this gig as in any other case we wouldn’t have been able to appreciate all the alterations that happen within the noisy, yet enveloping and very exciting background which is a characteristic of the sound of The Soft Moon.
The Soft Moon see light in the dark side of human existence and instead of running away from it, they embrace and sing about it.
He appeared through smoke and darkness in the same way his vocals feel as if they have managed to break free from a thick darkness. Luis played the guitar, often directing it towards the ceiling followed by his gaze. When he was not singing, playing the guitar, making these mechanized sounds through the synthesizer or hitting a big metallic cylinder that was part of the percussions, he was still performing and expressing different feelings in various ways. At some point he even balanced his body on a metallic beam on the ceiling, in an act of emotional suspension. For around 40’ we listened to songs from both ‘Zeros‘ and ‘Deeper‘ and we watched Luis give an emotionally powerful performance that was received by the audience with shouts of excitement. The setlist included songs from all three releases of the band and we listened and danced to ‘Machines‘, ‘Zeros’, ‘Far‘ and ‘Circles‘.
What followed, sadly put a sudden and unfortunate end to the gig and left everybody gradually feeling numb, sad and nervous. As a person from the audience felt unwell, in the absence of a reaction from the people around him, Luis 
rushed to his help by requesting the immediate response from the venue’s staff. For reasons that can’t be analysed in this text, both the audience and the venue seemed to underestimate the importance of the situation and it took a while to evacuate the venue and call medical assistance. Once again we would like to express our disappointment for a few members of the audience that rushed to take snapshots of the unconscious person. We applaud the promptness of Luis, without which, valuable time might have been lost for the recovery of our fellow member from the audience. It was indeed very strange to learn that a similar event has occurred during the band’s appearance at Primavera Sound Festival in Barcelona during the summer.
We don’t share other people’s frustration which has been openly expressed at the time of the gig as well as on social media the following days, for the sudden end to this gig. While we recognize that the value of a ticket corresponds to a, roughly two hours long gig, which was not offered in the end, this cannot be compared to the importance of someone’s well being. In a world that loses sight more and more of the things that matter, the importance of someone’s life/well being is something that shouldn’t be challenged in any case.
Humbly we would like to thank Soft Moon for handling this situation in such a humane way, thank you for not reducing the importance of this unfortunate event by continuing this gig as if nothing had happened. To our joy, we learned the next day that the person was recovering and with this in mind, we hope to see The Soft Moon perform in London again in the near future.
You can see more photos from this gig here: https://blaue-rosen.com/the-soft-moon_ellll-live-at-electrowerkz-2015/
Blaue Rosen 