Cornelius at London Royal Festival Hall, May 6th 2002

Whatever you expected, here's more. If you thought Keigo Oyamada aka Cornelius would find it hard to translate his magnificent Point album onto a live stage, you're so wrong baby, so very wrong. Tonight's show is even more jaw-droppingly stupendous than the last time we saw Cornelius in action, back in 1999 at London's relatively pokey Scala. He threw his sampler into the crowd back then, and he does it again today. But it's not just the tricks, and it's not just the music - how could it ever be "just" the music? - and it's not just the visuals, and it's not just the inner ear-frazzling metal assault towards the end. It's not just the enchanting cover of "Brazil", or the ridiculously sublime theremin-led mangling of Elvis's "Love Me Tender" mid-set. It's the fact that even when your brain is desperately trying to invent a new sense just so it can take in the full technicolour blipvert blitzkrieg bouncing around the usually stolid RFH, the little it can compute is somehow horrible and harmonious, nonsense and profundity, the most perfectly choreographed strobe-o-scopic sound-and-vision spectacular since...oooh, since that time Bedazzled and Performance and The Ipcress File all became one massive film in my head. "Drop" makes everyone cross their legs, but they just...can't...move; when the aforementioned metal onslaught abruptly comes to an end, a small voice from the audience asks "is everyone still alive?" - the name of the next Cornelius album, surely? Genius doesn't even come close, really.

Cornelius website

(originally published 24th June 2002)