“No, it’s cool, come through! Come to the front!” – the words of encouragement are spoken by a thirty-something woman, wine glass in her hand, best friend on her side. The person she’s addressing? A short, impervious woman who, a walking stick firmly grasped between her fingers, managed to make her way to the front of an extremely packed (and sold-out) KOKO in Camden. “I thought it was a small venue, she’s not prepped for this, she’s 81!”, the lady’s middle-aged daughter tells me as she reaches my side, laughing at her mother’s carefree spirit. “Wasn’t there a brawl at the front between those girls drinking prosecco?” “It’s okay, she can fight them off with her stick”. A few minutes later, the woman’s father also joined us at the side of the stage, joking about his wife’s temperament. This is the Troubadour Sanchez effect: a crowd of all ages, genders, and styles coming together to celebrate the story of an Angel Face.
The lights go down as the speakers come on. Channel-surfing through various radio stations, a series of songs by some of the greatest musicians of the 1950s play one after the other when finally, an announcement is being made: “Ladies and gentlemen, the tale you’re about to hear is one that happened a long, long time ago. The characters in the story are no longer with us but they live on as apparitions haunting these very rooms to share their never-ending tale of love […] Sit back, relax. You’re listening to WWLD ‘What Would Love Do?’ Radio. Now playing: The Troubadours.”
And there he is, Stephen Sanchez, standing in the darkness of the stage as a single cold, white spotlight highlights his silhouette from the back. ‘Something About Her’ sets the tone for the night, a slow, soft ballad about the Troubadour’s love for Evangeline. The crowd cheers even louder as the song comes down, the lights go bright red, and Sanchez’s band, The Moon Crests, join him on stage to perform one of the tracks key to the night’s narrative: ‘Evangeline’.
As established by the show’s intro, the “The Troubadour Takes Europe” tour has a narrative of its own, with the songs narrating the vicissitudes of three different core characters – Stephen Sanchez (later turned The Troubadour Sanchez), Evangeline, and Hunter – in the years running from 1958 through 1964. The fictitious world was crafted by Sanchez for his debut album ‘Angel Face’, with its lore expanded via the cinematic experience ‘Angel Face: The Live Visual Album’, which the tour elaborates on.
With a clear aesthetic being portrayed both sonically and visually on the stage, and effective world-building, Sanchez is a magnet for fans of the rock-and-roll era of the 50s and 60s. From people in their early twenties longing for a time way ahead of theirs to older ones who, like our aforementioned 81-year-old-lady-with-a-walking-stick, got to experience those days firsthand, Sanchez is the perfect 2020s Elvis Presley re-release.
Moving up to the balcony just in time for one of the night’s most infectious tracks, the rockabilly-core ‘Shake’, with a full scope of the stage and its surroundings, it’s impossible not to notice how KOKO is the perfect setting for the story we are taking in. With its red draped and dimly lit balconies, few others are the walls this tale of love and sorrow could be celebrated within.
A tip of the hat goes out to The Moon Crests and the songs’ impeccable live arrangements. Like the unreleased ‘Howlin’ At Wolves’, the soundtrack to the rage and vengeance of Evangeline, a song which shook the theatre to its core as the night was coming close to an end. Or the Morriconesque ‘Death Of The Troubadour’, the soundtrack to The Troubadour Sanchez’s premature death as he gets gunned down by Hunter for plotting to escape with Evangeline. “Is he dead?”, I find myself asking a friend as I lose track of The Troubadour’s whereabouts on stage. “He was on the floor,”, they reply. “Not dead yet, folks, not dead yet!”, shouts Sanchez mere seconds later.
Hardly ever breaking character – a few acknowledgements of his excitement for being able to play a show in London and a shoutout to the actors who played Evangeline and Hunter in the visuals and were in attendance being the only exceptions –, Sanchez delivered his vision in a pretty package all wrapped up in a vintage bolo tie.
With a swing of the hip, a purr between verses, and a twang in his voice so effortlessly delivered that even Austin Butler himself might want to take notes, The Troubadour Sanchez has put on a show so immersive that it is impossible not to wonder: what next?
Written by Benns Borgese // photography by Mattia Ghisolfi
GEM Magazine 