Cornelius at the Fillmore

My friend Melissa introduced me to Cornelius several months ago. What I learned quickly was that he is just as much a visual artist as he as a musician, and his show last night at the Fillmore combined the two worlds with grace. I don't know much about him, but often I feel that he hits just the right notes together as if he has studied music for decades; as if he has come to know intimately the music centers of the brain and knows, factually, that this sound and this other sound go together perfectly and it's obscene that they haven't been put together before.

The show began when a large white sheet was pulled up in front of the stage. Blocks of color were projected onto it from the back, allowing the audience to make shadow puppets of bunnies and eagles dueling it out. The show continued to be an interactive dream, even as the sheet fell and we gazed at the four magical musicians and the large screen set up behind them, which continuously ran visual sequences to move with the songs. Whether it was splatters of primary colored paint, or the full produced videos (like this one for Tone Twilight Zone), or the flood lights aimed at the audience radiating pulses of light to the music, we were treated to a full sensual experience in keeping with the namesake of the evening: "Ultimate Sensuous Synchronized Show". Thankfully I am not prone to seizures, because I imagine that the lights, music and atmosphere could certainly induce a hypnotic trance and a widening of the pupils for the person with even the slightest trace of ADD.

Oh, and cornelius himself is super adorable.