| Author | Message | ||
     Pádraig Collins Unregistered guest |
It was a wonderful show. It surpassed even the high expectations I had and was one of the best concerts I've ever seen. Nick Cave was in fine form, Jarvis Cocker was hilarious, Handsome Family were brilliant, the band was awesome. Kate and Anna McGarrigle looked disarmingly like True and Prude from Kath and Kim, but apat from that were terrific, as were Kate's kids Rufus and Martha Wainright. It was great also to see Linda Thompson and her son Teddy (who is a far better singer than his dad Richard by the way). At the finale Rufus danced with Kate, Teddy danced with Linda, Nick danced with the Rene (bloke from Handsome Family) and Jarvis looked a little forlorn. Some of the best performers were people whom I did not know at all. Some guy who just goes by the name Antony has an incredible voice, and there was a woman called Julie Christensen who I have seen before as a backing singer with Cohen himself; she was amazing too. Beth Orton was great also, particularly in a duet with Jarvis Cocker. I'm not naming songs as: a/ this would spoil the surprise for those of you going to tonight's final performance, and b/ I don't know most of the names, though I did know maybe 60% of the songs. I will name one though. Hallelujah was magisterial. But it was not even the best of the night! The show will go down in Sydney concert lore - maybe world concert lore as it has only previously been performed in New York and Brighton. The whole thing reminded me of The Last Waltz. Yeah, A Last Waltz for the next generation. If you are in Sydney and did not get a ticket for this show I pity your poor choice! If you are going tonight I envy the joy you will experience ... except that I experienced the same joy last night! Over the Dublin contingent: what was the AMC show like last night? The the HOL the night before? I've already heard by text that they were both great gigs. | ||
| Todd Slater Member Username: Todd_slater Post Number: 1 Registered: 01-2005 |
I agree totally. I thought after seeing The Dirty Three recently in Sydney (mindblowingly good & Beth Orton in the audience) that if I see a better 2 to 3 gigs in 2005 it will have been an oustanding year concert wise. Based on the premise that one only sees about that number of really great performances in a GOOD year. I caught the show on Saturday night and was blown away by the length & breadth of the show. Antony had the crowd cooing everytime he opened his mouth. Sensational voice. He has appeared out here before on the last Lou Reed tour and sang on Lou's Raven record a few years ago. Laurie Anderson who played in the Brighton & Brooklyn shows last year discovered him a few years ago. Incidentally Laurie Anderson had to miss the Sydney shows as she is the artist in residence at NASA. Antony has a solo gig in Sydney tonight in Newtown at The Vanguard. Highlights for me were the sexy duet by Beth Orton & Jarvis Cocker doing 'Death of a ladies man', Nick Cave's Vegas sleaze like rendition of 'Diamonds in the mine', Perla Bataila (one of Cohen's original back up singers) opening up bigtime on 'Bird on a wire', and the bawdy, rollicking finale of 'Don't go home with your hard on' It was a great gig and one of the all time great concert experiences. If the Gillian Welch Forum Theatre show was rated as the best gigs in Australia in 2004 (according to the Melbourne Age) then this would be a very close to the best in 2005. The Go Betweens must be due to tour the new record this year and the other rumour is that Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds plus the gospel singers are due for a Australian tour in May. I nearly forgot to mention that The Handsome Family were fantastic not only on Saturday night but at their Sydney gig at the Basement a couple of weeks ago. Great stuff. | ||
| Peter Ward Unregistered guest |
Sounds fantastic you lucky sods, do you know if the show is being staged anywhere else or whether it was recorded? I haven't heard the more mainstream Cohen tribute album released some years ago but I do have the I'm Your Fan one and it still gets aired on a regular basis, particularly John Cales beautiful Halelujah. AMC played a great set, highlights..Patriot's Heart, Johnny Mathis' Feet and Outside This Bar. I heard HoL was terrible and that Terry Bickers was hard to endure but I wasn't there and this report came from the designated driver of the night so it might be tainted somewhat!! | ||
| Pádraig Collins Unregistered guest |
The Cohen show was not recorded on camera and did not seem to be recorded at anything beyond a mixing desk level for sound. I am surprised that in the age of DVD that something such as this - which would be perfect for the format - was not recorded for posterity. Possibly it is to do with the royalties nightmare with all the artists on different labels? | ||
| Todd Slater Member Username: Todd_slater Post Number: 2 Registered: 01-2005 |
Sunday night's show was filmed & recorded. It will be interesting to see if the show is repeated anywhere else in the world. I attended the talk on Saturday afternoon on Cohen and producer Hal Wilner mentioned that it was possible it may be reproduced down the track. So who knows ?? | ||
| Pádraig Collins Unregistered guest |
I'm delighted to hear that Sunday's show was recorded. The sound was superb in the Opera House on Saturday, presumably it was the same on Sunday. Maybe it is always that way in the Opera House? That was my first time seeing anything there. | ||
| Peter Ward Unregistered guest |
Great to hear it was recorded, it might yet see the light of day, I will be forwarding my number onto Hal to see if he's interested in reproducing it in the parish hall in Dunshaughlin as I know someone on the commitee there! I have on video somewhere some B/W footage of Leonard performing The Stranger Song on a TV show, theres a tear running down his face, it's beautiful, anyone seen that? On the same show was Tim Buckley doing Buzzin'Fly and Richie Havens also, it could have been a whistle test re-run. | ||
| lindy morrison Member Username: Lindymorrison Post Number: 60 Registered: 09-2004 |
I promised I'd write a review on the Sunday night performance and have failed to do this. Instead can I direct you to the complete review, every song and performer discussed on that Sunday night from Andrew Bartlett. go to http://andrewbartlettonline.blogspot.com and read the entry called "They Came So Far for Beauty" It was a brilliant concert and Andrew's review has link's, discussion on songs and albums and the rest |