Diandra Reviews It All

The strangeness of Jesse’s Hard Sky is that its sounds “larger than life”, but when you meet Jesse, himself, he is down to earth. Hard Sky embodies all the hiccups and happenings of love, life, and the general things we have no idea how to handle, but somehow have it in “our hands”. In perspective, now, it makes sense Jesse would be such a humble, good humored guy on stage, but, on record, his album plays to a “Mick Jaggering” persona.

I am always marveling at the contrast between record and concert because, back in my younger days, I was not exactly a “concert girl”. For me the album was enough, and I did not have a full appreciation or notice of how a live show could revamp how you see an artist and their work. Albeit, not every artist impacts me with their live show, but Jesse did in the strangest way. In retrospect, I kind of expected Jesse to be a “folksier” version of The Vacant Lots’ show. Do not ask me why I thought this, but I think it goes back to Hard Sky being such a tender record of tension. Jesse is unabashedly confused by this whole “life thing” we are all on about, which is a feeling that can make you want to smash a guitar or riff your way through a set. Yet, Jesse feels like he strolled from the street to the stage, and decided to use his hour on it as an emotional purge. There is something approachable to his reproach that contrasts the “rock n’ roll” foundation from which he stand . While most rockers aim to go big or moody with their personas, Jesse becomes a person that, by chance, has a guitar to strum his thoughts upon. The result makes his “dizzying” vocals sound more girded and grounded when live. While Hard Sky can be a whirlpool of instrumentals and whimsy vocals, in concert, it plays to a more serious, straighter tone, which helps you grasp the pain behind certain lyrics.

From “De-pression” to “Hard Sky”, Jesse’s concert shed some of the “glitz” of its moonlighted arrangements in exchange for the grit of the sentiments that inspired them. When listening to Hard Sky, I understood this was an album about feeling confused over how you want “the best” in life but do not want the hard work to get it. Yet, in concert, Jesse conveyed how much these feelings, basically, are the worst, and how there is need to “mick jagger” through that emotional truth. For More Information On Jesse Click Here.