IN CONCERT: The Piano Guys, Eventim Apollo, June 13th 2015

"Have you heard of The Piano Guys?"

"Who?"

The concert started with some vox pops and potted history of the YouTube sensation that is The Piano Guys. The 'Guys themselves were conducting the interviews and, I suspect, those not of the YouTube generation will meet the question, "Have you heard of The Piano Guys?" with a resounding - "Who?". If that is the case, though, you are sadly missing out.

 



Gee, I wonder which artist is on tonight?

For those of you in the know, permit me to elaborate first and stay with me. For the others, TPG are a set of "middle aged dads who play music via YouTube videos", as Jon Schmidt (the talented pianist of the band) says. They do songs but they do mash ups, usually of famous songs you've heard of, and mix them with classical music you might not have. You might get Bach meets The Jackson 5 or Vivaldi versus the Theme from The Bourne Identity. As recently a few days ago they did a version of the Jurassic Park theme in one of their videos. The videos are great too - very arty, picturesque and into nature. The Piano Guys are most notably two artists - Jon (piano) and Steve (cello) but there are actually four of them. Their history of how they got together is both miraculous by Jon's own admission but also serendipitous. But I'll stop giving background now and go for the gig.

 

This was the last gig of the tour and featured a multitude of awe inspiring songs - sometimes to the videos we've seen on YouTube and sometimes not. Stretching from Story of My Life by One Direction to the Theme To Kung Fu Panda via Let It Go to some self penned tracks, TPG were inspiring. The fluency and skill on the part of both artists was nothing short of jaw dropping and the speaking in between as they interacted with the audience was like they were talking to you in their front room. At the start it was more about telling you what song they were playing next but by the time they got to their second act they were joking and chatting on like they'd known us for years. 



There's actually four Piano Guys -
here they are playing a piano at the same time!

I think it takes a large amount of skill to play both a piano and cello to the level they do; but to keep people enchanted for two hours is something else... And they did. Their mix of raw talent and humility was refreshing and their take on music is too. They've successfully mixed classical music with contemporary music and made it accessible to the masses. Some of their work borders on genius and in their own way they are as good as the composers they so obviously admire.

I would go and see these guys again. As a musician myself I was in awe, but as a spectator it was fun, enjoyable and refreshingly different. They created The Piano Guys YouTube channel to sell pianos from the shop they had set up. They created it to showcase the pianos... they never sold a single piano. They became world wide famous and released four albums and got signed by Sony instead.

 

Dreams can come true and these guys deserve every bit of it.

Top drawer music from a talented bunch.

POPSCORE: 10/10

For more on The Piano Guys and their amazing cross-genre music check out www.pianoguys.com and their YouTube channel - search "The Piano Guys"

I have used a photo taken from the gig in this review to supplement the text - if this is not appropriate then let me know and I will be happy to take it down.