if you’ve seen the movie “amélie” then you’ve heard his music. he set the tone of the film with his original compositions, some of them complex pieces with multiple instruments and melodies, and several of them solo piano pieces. i’m not exactly sure what it is about his music, but for me, it has the power to greatly lift my mood, almost exponentially. the best way that i know how to put it into words, is that (please pardon the cheese factor) it makes my heart “happy.”

so, when i heard that yann tiersen had several tour dates in the US, i was disappointed, but not that surprised, when i saw that he wasn’t coming to cincinnati. and even though he was going to chicago, it was on a tuesday night, and i’d most certainly have started my job by then, right?

not so much. after having the start date of my job pushed back (again) until april 27th, i realized that i could now go to see him in chicago! this past sunday, i called dug up to see if he wanted to see mr. tiersen (he’s a fan as well), and if not, then would he mind if i crashed at his house so I could go? (i should mention that if i thought he might mind, i never would have asked.) and when i told him about it and that i intended on going, he decided to go as well.

so yesterday, i drove 5 hours up to chicago in all of the crappy rainy weather, had dinner with dug, his wife, and another couple that we’re friends with, at a wonderful indian restaurant down the street, and afterwards, dug and i jetted off to the concert.

before dinner, dug had read that (yann? mr. tiersen? i have no idea what to call him, except i don’t want to keep saying “yann tiersen” every time i reference him. he is YT from now on) was branching out from his classical compositions into more guitar-based rock. he looked at me and said, “okay, now i have no idea what to expect.” and of course, neither did i.

we thought there might be a piano or keyboard somewhere on stage where he might rock out some of his piano pieces, but after the opening act and during the set change, no keyboards or pianos made an appearance. thoroughly confused now, we waited for him to come onstage, just to see what we’d gotten ourselves into.

holy shit.

i mean, i figured that ANY music that he composed would be good; he’s an extremely talented musician. but the concert that we got far exceeded any speculations that either of us might have had.

anyway, here are a few photos from the show (taken with my trusty phone):

i’m pretty sure that he’s looking directly at my camera in this one. and yes, that is a “my bloody valentine” t-shirt he’s wearing:

he played the violin for us as well. i’m guessing that he brings along enough bows for his tour, because having to replace the shredded violin bow hair after each show would probably be time-consuming.

i would like to state, for the record, that YT and his entire band are incredibly hot, and talented. (wait…if i say “talented” first and then “hot,” does that make me sound less shallow? no? oh well. i should mention here that i find a man who really knows how to play the violin a complete turn-on. strange, i know, but very true. so in my defense, the “talent” and “hot” factor sort of go hand-in-hand for me.)

here’s a photo taken when he first picked up the violin:

and this was after he’d been playing for awhile, and pretty furiously at that, evidenced by the fact that his hand and the bow are a complete blur:

(i promise, there were other members of the band; five of them, in fact. i got distracted by the YT directly in front of me that i sort of forgot about the others. oops.)

the music was, in a word, amazing. we probably weren’t in the best position to hear the music clearly (we were in what dug called “monitorland”), but what music we DID hear was beautifully and melodically constructed, whether it was fast or slow, instrumental or with vocals.

while dug went on the (third? fourth?) beer run, he stopped by the merch booth to see if he could get a CD with this music on it, and unfortunately, it does not exist…yet. the person manning the merch booth asked dug what he thought of the music, and dug told him that he really liked it. Merch Booth Guy told him he was just curious because, apparently there had been some people who showed up, and when they realized that it wasn’t his usual compositions, they were disappointed and left. and they completely missed out.

after every song, the entire audience (minus the losers that didn’t stick around) cheered wildly, and a few of those times, YT grinned somewhat sheepishly at the audience, almost as if he couldn’t believe the reception that he was getting with the music he was playing. you can’t deny musical genius, folks.

so in summary, we heard some amazing music from an amazing musician that hasn’t even been recorded yet. i, for one, will be pre-ordering yann tiersen’s next album.