date: 13 June 2021, 19:00
duration: 1 h 20 min, no intermission
tickets: 130, 150 zlotys, streaming (live): 25 zlotys
cast: Kovacs and David Hoogerheide (keys), Estelle Stijkel (guitar), Jelle Huiberts (drums), Korné ter Steege (bass), Jan Dekker (trumpet), Julia Evers (backing voc)
producer: Marta Dzwonkowska
Kovacs. Sharon Kovacs.
In a few years (if producers of the 007 blockbusters have ears, not pistols), she will sing the Bond theme song for the next film in the series. Meanwhile, she tells her own story.
– I don’t want to be negative about the past – she says. – I just want to use it.
A scenario typical for a music star on the threshold of a world career: childhood in a small town in the south of the Netherlands where art is just a fad, moving to the metropolis, conflict with the mother who disregards her child’s passion, longing for the father who left before she could remember his face, self-teaching with YouTube and teachers who are overwhelmed by the mentee’s talent, jam sessions and open microphones in jazz clubs, unhappy loves, drugs, meeting with a producer, debut, taste of success, something ends, something begins…
Kovacs wanted and had to become independent as a songwriter. She no longer performs songs – even great ones – that are not one hundred percent her story. Yes, she will always love Billie Holiday, Janis Joplin, Amy Winehouse, Tina Turner, Grace Jones, and Beth Gibbons, her voice is filled with the chic pain of existence, yet she also knows that darkness and nostalgia are bad advisers.
The new Kovacs’ songs are stylish pop that shines like gold and asks for a theatrical setting. Maybe, to overcome traumas, you have to talk about them boldly, with no shame?
kovacsmusic.com
photo Alexandra von Fuerst
