Robert Schwartzman wants to make people dance, I mean this is what I got from his dance-floor-engaging set at the Satellite on Monday night, where he has a residency for the whole month of May. Robert Schwartzman, frontman of the Los Angeles rock band Rooney, brother of actor Jason Schwartzman, now goes under his own name with his solo project. However, music and cinema are definitively intertwined in the Schwartzman family, wasn’t Jason himself involved with the bands Coconut Records and Phantom Planet, and hasn’t Robert acted in ‘The Virgin Suicides’, the movie directed by his cousin Sofia Coppola, the other famous side of the family? With such high profile surrounding, I expected the room to be filled with some ‘beautiful people’, and if I didn’t recognize anyone that I know, the audience was mostly young and quite good-looking I must say!
I wasn’t familiar at all with Robert Schwartzman’s music, but it sounded as if this 30-year-old guy had digested a lot of 80s music, to produce a sort of synth-pop-funk-disco amalgam, with catchy melodies and a definitive desire to make every body move. He even covered a song of that period, Kate Bush’s ‘Running up That Hill’, which fitted quite well in the middle of his set. Actually, it may have been the darkest song he sang, all the rest was very poppy and upbeat with hooky choruses all over the place and some real disco-dance beats during some tunes.
He had obviously listened to the classics, ‘I Know Why’ had a sort of 80s Elton John meets Phil Collins vibe going on, ‘The Victim’ was a total let’s-be-serious-with-our-dance-floor-number with a Prince falsetto and a real nice dance-y groove, ‘You don’t have to Lie’ was a slow synth-electronica kind of Pet Shop Boys at times, ‘Someone To Love’ was a sweaty sexy electronic dance tune and ‘Second chances’ was all upbeat beats before breaking into this big and catchy chorus,… so what not to love? People were totally loving it,… me? I was certainly toe-tapping, even though I never listen to this kind of music, trying to ignore the lyrics (stuff like ‘there is no such thing as forever’, or ‘someone stole my heart’) which seemed totally trite, but Schwartzman’s good energy on stage and his sweetheart attitude were difficult to resist to. He had totally conquered the crowd after a few songs, at one point he was even holding both hands of a girl in front row and this girl’s heart almost exploded.
Wearing ripped jeans, a pair of boots and a jean shirt over a Don Henley/Hotel California t-shirt – yuck, what? The Eagles? – he was comfortable on stage and resembling more a modern country guy, think a younger Keith Urban looking a bit like Jason of course, than a 80s music lover. Most of the songs were from his album ‘Double Capricorn’, whose sales have benefited the Tibetan Healing Fund, a not-for-profit humanitarian organization to improve primary healthcare and education for rural Tibetan women and children, so what did I say about him being a good guy?
But there also was a surprise – and Robert announced there will be more of them during his May residency – Weezer’s Brian Bell came on stage for two songs, and the first one was Weezer’s ‘Susanne’, sang with the help of an iPhone revealing the lyrics. A nice surprise for the crowd, but this is the thing about Robert Schwartzman, he wants to make people dance and more than everything else, he wants to make people happy.
Setlist
Innermission
I know why
Our Love
The victim
Let Go!
Do What You Want
Heart Attack
Running up That hill (Kate Bush’s cover)
You don’t have to Lie
So Bad
Susanne (Weezer’s cover)
Second Chances
Someone to Love