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Feb. 6th, 2011 09:50 pmSuzanne Vega at the Atwood Concert Hall, Anchorage, Alaska, February 4, 2011
This was such a rare treat for me. Not just seeing a musician I've been a fan of since high school (when her first album came out) but one who's current work I still enjoy (I confess she did lose me for a bit after Days of Open Hand). I can probably count those people on one hand and the odds of one of them coming up to Alaska to perform? Pretty slim. The odds were probably evened out a bit by the fact that she was only accompanied by one other musician, guitarist Gerry Leonard, and her equipment needs were pretty small. She played in Kodiak before coming to Anchorage and is going on to Fairbanks. Stay warm you guys!
Gerry Leonard, by the way, looked like Jon Pertwee playing a rocker in an Archie comic; he had this black jacket with red and white ribbons and three-quarter sleeves with white lace. It was awesome.
Ms. Vega is in the process of releasing four albums on her own label of "reinterpreted" versions of her older songs, and as that's what she's touring to support most of the songs were from her earlier years, which pleased the crowd greatly. I would have been OK if the majority of the material had been from her last studio album of new work Beauty & Crime but it was lovely to hear so many old favorites, including ones I wouldn't necessarily have expected like "Ironbound". She did play one song from B&C, "Frank & Ava", which was certainly a good choice. She also treated us to a couple of songs from the forthcoming play, "Carson McCullers Talks About Love" that she wrote and is playing Carson McCullers in(!) Duncan Sheik is involved with the music side as well. It's opening in April.
The problematic acoustics of the venue (which I complain about like it's my job) were not too problematic this time around, but as I believe the problems usually arise from scaling down sound design I wasn't expecting it to be that bad. It would have been nice if they could have done the lighting so that there weren't constant reflections from her very shiny guitar bouncing off into the audience.
As far as the songs being reinterpreted, I couldn't really hear that much of a difference in the arrangements. This may have been in part because I was really only paying attention to her voice, and I didn't pick up much variation there. Mostly it was as gorgeous as it's always been.
I did consider braving the crowd afterward for her album signing session, if only to say thank you, but it would have meant missing the last bus home. I could have walked and I certainly have before but it had been a long day and a long week and I was tired. A couple of days later and I can say for certain that skipping that part did not in any way diminish my enjoyment of the show. She was fabulous.
This was such a rare treat for me. Not just seeing a musician I've been a fan of since high school (when her first album came out) but one who's current work I still enjoy (I confess she did lose me for a bit after Days of Open Hand). I can probably count those people on one hand and the odds of one of them coming up to Alaska to perform? Pretty slim. The odds were probably evened out a bit by the fact that she was only accompanied by one other musician, guitarist Gerry Leonard, and her equipment needs were pretty small. She played in Kodiak before coming to Anchorage and is going on to Fairbanks. Stay warm you guys!
Gerry Leonard, by the way, looked like Jon Pertwee playing a rocker in an Archie comic; he had this black jacket with red and white ribbons and three-quarter sleeves with white lace. It was awesome.
Ms. Vega is in the process of releasing four albums on her own label of "reinterpreted" versions of her older songs, and as that's what she's touring to support most of the songs were from her earlier years, which pleased the crowd greatly. I would have been OK if the majority of the material had been from her last studio album of new work Beauty & Crime but it was lovely to hear so many old favorites, including ones I wouldn't necessarily have expected like "Ironbound". She did play one song from B&C, "Frank & Ava", which was certainly a good choice. She also treated us to a couple of songs from the forthcoming play, "Carson McCullers Talks About Love" that she wrote and is playing Carson McCullers in(!) Duncan Sheik is involved with the music side as well. It's opening in April.
The problematic acoustics of the venue (which I complain about like it's my job) were not too problematic this time around, but as I believe the problems usually arise from scaling down sound design I wasn't expecting it to be that bad. It would have been nice if they could have done the lighting so that there weren't constant reflections from her very shiny guitar bouncing off into the audience.
As far as the songs being reinterpreted, I couldn't really hear that much of a difference in the arrangements. This may have been in part because I was really only paying attention to her voice, and I didn't pick up much variation there. Mostly it was as gorgeous as it's always been.
I did consider braving the crowd afterward for her album signing session, if only to say thank you, but it would have meant missing the last bus home. I could have walked and I certainly have before but it had been a long day and a long week and I was tired. A couple of days later and I can say for certain that skipping that part did not in any way diminish my enjoyment of the show. She was fabulous.
