Blood Orange at Øya 2019

Dev Hynes met all the expectations, being a great musician and transferring all the deep feelings of his songs

During the last hours of the festival and at the same time that The Cure sounded on the other stage, Blood Orange took us on a trip through delicate and deep rap coated with polished electronics and beautiful instrumental arrangements.  

For a set of approximately 16 songs, Blood Orange delighted its audience with tunes mainly from its gem Negro Swan. I know that mix-tape albums with short one minute songs and more than thirty songs per album are very popular. That style is also reflected in the concerts. However, Blood Orange put on the handbrake and avoided most of his Angel’s Pulse songs and offered us well-produced and instrumented songs.

Cosy Rap Lounge

The Sirkus stage at Øya is a perfect match for Hynes’ music. The tent is completely full, and Dev Hynes apologize because he and we were all missing The Cure. Most do not think it twice and choose to see an artist who brings the whole rap-lounge experience, accompanied by two voices, piano, drums, sax and hints of flute here and there. 

The cosy rap-lounge mood is fixed throughout the concert. The same cannot be said about the genres, which jumps from funk, vocal rap, shoe-gaze, dance to R&B with plenty of eclectic musical arrangements.  Hynes present pieces of his new mix-tape as the single «Dark & Handsome», then give way to the snuggy hits of Black Swan such as «Saint«, «Jewelry«, «Dagenham Dream«, and naturally, «Charcoal Baby«. Of course he does not miss the opportunity to make people dance with tracks like «E.V.P» and «Best to you» from his album Freetown Sound.

Pleasant and ethereal

The crowd enjoys a wholesome concert, which makes them both dance and sing some of Blood Orange’s most intense songs, as well as applaud some of the choir-soloists’ efforts. The bandmates also offers eclectic musical details that emerge within each song, the sax swag being particularly enjoyable. The pleasant and ethereal music of Hynes is supplemented with images in the background of what looks like photos of his teenage years.

In general the only flaw would be that he is not a great singer, but for me he met all the expectations of being a great musician and transferring all the deep feelings of his songs and the layers of the musical arrangements.