The Geese/Cameron Winter hype will not recede, and this Live at Carnegie Hall album is yet another stepping stone into the wacky world of music reportage and songmaking for the young crooner. Is Cameron Winter playing a sold-out show at Carnegie Hall at age 23 monumental? Yes, it is. It puts him on par with Bob Dylan who played there when he was 20… Is it really worth the hype? If you like Winter’s solo stuff, yeah, it is.
It sounds crisp; you get the gargantuan sound of the grand piano and Winter’s classic tortured, long-syllabled droll, and the crowd loses it before being reduced to not even a whisper. Most of the songs are on Heavy Metal and a few from the Singles EP, but he does open the live album with “It All Fell in the River,” a new one. Now, this new track sounds like a deep cut from Heavy Metal, very dark piano folk matched with Winter’s stream of consciousness. “Emperor XIII in Shades” is another new one, another monolithic story that seems too big to mean anything. Again, if you like Winter’s poetic musings, you’ll love this one. But Winter I was ask you what is a “nude saddle burner?”
I get the sense Winter is a very private and awkward guy who has been thrust into the spotlight, but on this album, you really just get him doing what he does best—croon, sometimes incoherently. The mix on the album is also quite pristine, as songs bleed into each other, best heard during the outro of “Nina + Field of Cops,” probably one of my favourites on Heavy Metal and this one.
Now, this live album will also come with a concert film, directed by Paul Thomas Anderson (right after he released One Battle After Another) and shot a bit by Benny Safdie on 35mm film. The trailer shows that this is going to be a concert film through and through, without any real build-up besides people buying tickets and then watching the performance. While I appreciate that Anderson is going for realism and making the film about the music, he is perpetuating this hype train. I’m sure he’s a fan, but it’s truly bizarre that so many creatives are putting stock in this performer—still.
