Morbido 2015: Simon Boswell Rocks Morbido, Or, There Is A Mariachi Band Behind Me, Isn't There?

There are special moments when you are at film festivals, when the organizers pull out all the stops to ensure that you have not only a great time but memories that will last forever. My Simon Boswell memories first started at Morbido back in 2012 when they had a Richard Stanley retrospective screening of Dust Devil and they planned a song from the soundtrack while a sand artist did this wonderful show for us. 

Then, at Fantasia when Stanley's doc L'Autre Monde screened, Mr. Boswell was in town and played a short acoustic set before the screening. I thought my indirect experiences with the recording artist had peaked. Until Friday night. 

Simon and his band, The And, were in town for a show of some of his soundtrack work from years past. Hardware. Dust Devil. Shallow Grave. Close Your Eyes. Phenomena. Hackers. The proverbial so much more. 

But before the show began Morbido's Pablo Guisa Koestinger presented Simon with a Morbido award, the Blood Album. A framed blood red album that would have to be "played backwards" when Simon got the album back home to England. 

Because Boswell recently celebrated his 59th birthday Pablo invited the crowd to sing a traditional Mexican birthday song, accompanied by a Mariachi band, which popped up out of nowhere behind us in the auditorium.

On to the show. Behind Simon and his bandmates were collages from all the films he composed for. Images of cult icons Dario Argento and Alejandro Jorodowksy flashed up on screen. Richard Stanley got up on stage to perform a song from Hardware with the band. Boswell even managed to get Ewan McGregor to come to the studio and record screams for his Shallow Grave number. 

You realize that events like this are those 'you had to be there' moments and it is difficult to share how impressive the act is. But you know what else is so great about Boswell is how down to Earth the man is and how approachable he and his crew were this week. Such lovely, lovely people. 

At least performances like this are not one-time events, that Boswell and company are touring the show.