Keaton Henson has announced that he will be performing an online gig ‘Live from The Sanctuary,’ on the 3rd of December according to an announcement made on his instagram profile. According to an update made yesterday, fans who purchase a special ticket bundle will also receive a special signed print to commemorate the event.
Ticket bundles for the event are available here, and include extras such as a Q&A session with the artist, a copy of the ‘Monument,’ album, a signed print or a copy of Henson’s recent book of poetry ‘Accident Dancing.’ Prices for the bundles range from £10 for a Q&A to £18.99 for a copy of the peotry.
This comes with the UK’s second national lockdown almost at an end, yet recent announcements regarding the stricter tier system which will replace it mean that the vast swathes of the UK will still be unable to enjoy live music, with only a very small minority of areas falling into the loosest ‘tier 1,’ category, and areas such as Kent and parts of Essex being raised to the strictest ‘tier 3,’ level.
Keaton Henson has, like many other artists wisely have, not allowed lockdown to slow down either the creative process or reduce his interaction with fans. He has continued to release music, with his latest album ‘Monument,’ hitting stores four weeks ago and, like American contemporary Lana Del Rey, also decided to release a book of poetry called ‘Accident Dancing,’ which dropped on the 22nd of October.
‘Monument,’ is like all of Henson’s music to date, fragile, haunting and yet effortlessly warm and comforting. As listeners we feel his pain in a deeper way than we may be able to articulate by ourselves, and yet are deeply touched with a sense of solidarity in knowing that we are not alone in feeling lost, broken or uncomfortable in this world at times.
Fans will have gotten a taste of what to expect in this December’s event from the intimate live version of ‘Ambulance,’ a stand out track from the ‘Monument,’ album, which he posted on his Youtube channel a month ago. This song grabs your heart strings and tugs them gently in a way that is both beautiful and heartbreaking. It is rare to find a male artist today comfortable with showing as much vulnerability as Keaton Henson is able to show, a far cry away from the braggadocio and macho behaviour in the rap world.
Keaton Henson strips everything back to what music used to be, when a simple melody and an acoustic guitar were enough to break hearts. It is sad to see so few artists these days taking this formula and delivering it in a way which does not fall prey to cliche, or become over-commercial, processed pop music. The simplicity and imperfections in this music are what makes it so endearing, with no autotune or generic chord sequences to be found.
A mysterious presence to say the least, Henson’s fans will surely be very excited to be able to watch a live stream of a man so rarely known to give live performances. This may be one artist who is in fact grateful to the pandemic, for the restricted format of live streaming and reduced social contact which can generate greater mystique.
