First, a description from the video’s director, Ivan Slavov, over at Amplifier:
“You know what it really is? It’s an anti-video. It’s a non-performance performance video. It’s Elvis Presley, lounge, Pink Flamingos. It’s Vegas. It’s nearly reality TV, but a music video. Honesty is something that New Zealand can sell to the world and this song has honesty in bucket loads.”
I read that and I thought, wow, that video sounds amazing. And then I watched it. This is what happens: the group play the song in a black studio. And that’s about it. The only other things of note: a film of an earlier performance is projected on the band, and sometimes graphics of song lyrics song float across the screen. There is no Elvisness.
The thing is, “Good to See You Again” is a really sweet folky love song. There is no loungey swagger to it, so it gets a bit lost amongst the attempted sophistication and swagger of the video.
To me, a song like this is about daylight and outdoors, not a shadowy Vegas world. The honesty might be there in the performance, but the setting is keeping it hidden.
Best bit: lead singer Kelly Horgan photographs rather well.
Director: Ivan Slavov
Nga Taonga Sound & Vision
Next… the old laptop trick.
Oh HJT! How I used to moon over Kelly, his timid stage presence, his _soul_, maaaan. Someone who knew him told me that he’d said after his breakup with Bic that he “just felt like an observer in his own life” and oh how I swoooooooooooooooned at that.
Bloody hell. What a swoon merchant he was!