| Introducing her wide-ranging,
2-hour set with a studied yet lilting rendition of Kris Kristofferson's
country-blues Trouble In Mind (which she recorded for the
soundtrack for the 80's movie of the same name), a well rested (from
an earlier unplanned interruption of her European tour) and noticeably
heavy Marianne Faithfull at times gracefully and at times
self-effacingly commanded the stage to the delight of a sold-out crowd.
After a short opening set by her longtime studio bassist, renowned Lou
Reed collaborator and musician in his own right
Fernando Saunders, Faithfull was primed, if not always completely
prepared, to take 41 years worth of material from a range of different
album performances and distill it into a well sequenced tour of her
amazing vocal and songwriting repertoire.
Concentrating as much on new material from Before the Poison
- such as The Mystery of Love (penned by PJ Harvey)
to rousing renditions of Working Class Hero, Times
Square and of course, Sister Morphine and As
Tears Go By, the singer was relaxed and completely in her element.
But on some of the material, the singer-songwriter --- who is known for
her reading glasses and music stand full of lyric sheets on stage,
completely lost her place and humorously yelped "Shit!!!" to the delight of the
crowd. Then, she completely restarted the song from the beginning! In
another befuddled moment, she launched into the melodic and lyrical
tongue-twister Crazy Love, from the new album, tripped
herself up once again - went to the front of the stage while the band continued
holding the tune, and said to all that she had to get the
line right because it was her favorite part of the song! And so, she started
again gracefully right where she left off.
And yet again, she lost the words to another song, this time one that
she had written - then went over to her music stand - and exclaimed "after
you write the fuckers, you think that you'd at least be able to remember
them!" Then, exaggeratedly squinting and gesticulating widely with her glasses as if
she was half-blind, exclaimed that that they (her glasses) were all that she had
left - she no longer drinks, and - having recently kicked the habit -
cried out that she did
not even have her CIGARETTES any more!!! (Which would explain the
extra weight - but we all agreed we would rather see her heavy and alive
than smoking and the alternative!) Then, as she continued her
slapstick stage patter, she turned to the band and said, "Oh, but of
course I have you guys!" to the continued delight of the audience.
Though Faithfull has always proven warm and engaging in past performances,
she opened up a whole new window as a pleasantly comic character full of
self effacing humor and grace. It was completely refreshing in the
light of so many over-produced, sterile stage sets by most run-of-the-mill
performers, and further cemented her connection to a warmly appreciative
audience!
And her newly trained voice, also free of the burden of smoke and
nicotine, was like a wild horse which had an alarming fire all its own.
Though maybe a bit unwieldy and loose as she is getting reacquainted with
its power after all these years, it is all the more impressive that it has
bounced back so quickly!
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About the worst thing to be said about her entire performance barely
concerned the performance itself, but was more about the terribly bad fashion
choice she had made, which revealed itself the minute she removed her
stylish, fine-tailored blazer and hung it on the microphone stand.
Underneath was the most amazingly ghastly ---- uh ---blouse?
Tank-top? Inverted diaper? Ripped pillowcase?
Not sure - but the distracting oversized newsprint motif - complete with
larger-than life headlines on her expanding body, made it hard to look at
anything else. And I - like most in the audience - actually found myself
trying to read it up and around the contours of her famous bosom to see if
there was any timely or witty social commentary within! Alas, it
seemed like mostly gibberish!. Perhaps next time she will revert
back to solids, and sleeves would probably help too. Thank God she
wasn't on a red carpet somewhere being dissected by Joan and Melissa!
And of course, it simply means that, as with her memory, her fashion
feaux-pas are human too!
So in the end, after a double-encore which included a most amazingly
sex-kittenish reading of Why'd Ya Do It? (far different from
the over-the-top screaming of other live versions I have heard
her perform), she had the audience completely in her hands. As
usual, with no hope of or desire to escape, we were all captivated by her
magical spell. And once again, the Park West
shined in her most amazing light!
See Also:
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