“Leave you and deceive you”… so sang the annoyingly nasal two-foot tall idiot who dumped his wife by fax… Phil Collins.

Gonzales rarely plays gigs in the U.K nowadays save for a handful of excellent solo-piano shows in the capital. The last time there was an ‘old school’ Gonzales gig in London it was billed as a pretirement party, and saw Chilly Gonzo announce his retirement, play a set of greatest hits backed by Feist, Taylor Savvy, Mocky, Peaches, and Louie Austen. The gig ended with Gonzales requesting as a retirement gift that he remain onstage and watch every last punter leave which they did so under a strange hybrid cloud of joy, sadness, and total bemusement.

And so he left us, or rather Gonzales as ‘The Entertainist’ left us, as he soon re-emerged albeit in the producers chair and along with new accomplice Renauld Letang, produced some fantastic music for artists such as Feist, Teki Latex, Kissogram, Jane Birkin and loads more.

Four years on, and it seems we were deceived as Gonzales is set to unleash his latest album Soft Power upon us, and the solo piano shows are gone for it’s back to the Gonzales show of old, only this time with time with a full band Le Together Ensemble, consisting of Mocky, Matthew Flowers, Katie Moore, and So-Called along with a saxophone cameo from a member of the excellent Poni Hoax. 

The megalomaniac Gonzales was in full flow, more intimidating and edgier than last time round, more Clifton than Kaufman, spending half the gig sweating over the audience as well as getting within the audience to force members to sing his ‘hit’ from the days “when FACE magazine said I was going supernova, before I became a fat balding piano player”. 

The main set ended with new single ‘Working Together’ and a cameo from Akira the Don, before the band returned to belt through a cover of Phil Collins ‘Easy Lover’ before again turning on his audience to question their views on the track, asking whether it was a guilty pleasure, whether Gonzales himself was a musician or a “fucking jester”.  The true answer is trickier than those two choices, Gonzales loves music and one every one of his tracks you can hear the labour of love that goes into the track, and you can see the passion in his eyes as he plays them.  A jester just amuses, and although Gonzales can amuse to the hilt, no jester could have such a rich body of work under their belt and play gig’s as immense as this!

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