words: Marcos Leal (edited and freely translated by Raquel Pinheiro); photos:Marcos Leal
Musician, composer, producer, visual artist are several of the sides multi-instrumentalist John David Padgett, aka Johnny Jewel, Other than his career as a musician in Glass Candy and Chromatics, and owner of record label Italians Do It Better, Jewel gained recognition through producing film soundtracks.
Jewel steps on stage and starts uncovering the black clothing that cover the keyboards and synthsisers with which he will play. Drive and Bronson are two of his best known cinema pieces. It is precisely cinema that fuels his solo debut European tour. As Jewel himself would say towards the end of the concert, an experimental trial tour to see how the audience perceives it.
Jewel shows his aesthetic attention by presenting himself in a classic red suit, face painted as shades of characters of films like A Clockwork Orange, that, commanding the synthsisers creates with total harmony and synchrony along the screened film images. Retro aesthetics, violence, sex, mystery, are marked characteristics of the cinema with which Jewel so well creates the atmosphere that leaves viewers immerse in the sound and image experience. The performance developed in a crescendo of intensity, interrupted by a false ending. When returning, Jewel took the opportunity to address the audience and play two more tracks, the last one the remarkable theme of project Desire – Under your Spell from the film Drive soundtrack. That is how the performance ends. With Johnny Jewel wrapping back the instruments in black clothing.
Mondo Bizarre Magazine 