Hope Sandoval & The Warm Inventions

Upon arrival at the show, we were immediately told no cameras, no photos whatsoever, phones included, by request of Hope Sandoval herself.

All day I had dreamed of getting the perfect shot of her, but when that first song started, so came her voice.

And I forgot all about photos.

I was frozen.

And so was everyone around me.

Ethereal and mesmerizing and exactly how I'd imagined it all these years.
You only catch fleeting glimpses of her in the spatters of light, but she's breathtakingly beautiful and fragile and demands your attention.

And then, as they began the fourth song, she stopped with a wave of her hand and talked about not being able to hear herself and "heads will roll" and she even commented on how much she "fucking hates" New York City.

There was a collective silence from pretty much everyone in attendance.

She then went on about the three hour sound check and about possibly "throwing a tantrum" and then just up and walked off.

Everybody around us began telling stories of how this is the norm, how she walks off all the time, how sometimes she doesn't come back.

Surely she just crushed all the life out of the show.

Fuck this, I said.

Twenty minutes passed and miraculously I still waited.

People began leaving and I threatened aloud to do the same.

And then just as she had left, she was back and right before our eyes unearthed the best show I've seen in a very, very long time.

And the projections got better and better, became more intense.

Two film projectors became one man's puppets that he danced to the music by cupping and waving his hands in front of the lenses, flowers rotting and unfolding, couples embracing and collapsing, the surface of the sun and a lone ballerina swimming up the back wall and then down.

And as angry as I was, as much as I wanted to hate the show, hiss at the stage, breathe whiskey into these words... When that last note rang out, I just couldn't.

That voice. That haunting, echoing, wrenching, massive, breathy voice made me take it all back.

Though you are surely a diva, Hope Sandoval, I'd maybe come back for more.