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Austra- Lose It (Paper Bag Session)
When I saw Austra a few weeks ago, the one disappointing part of an otherwise great show was that she let her back-up singer handle the high notes in Lose It instead of doing them herself. That makes it especially nice to see her go for them here, even if the notes aren’t flawless.
The song itself loses none of its catchy-ness or power in this stripped-down form, and performing it in this way exposes the melancholy and desperation of the lyrics. The Kate Bush comparisons I saw in some reviews of Austra always felt gratuitous to me (I love Kate a lot, but not EVERY female singer owes a debt to her), but this shows there’s at least a tiny bit of merit to them, even if Austra’s facial expressions are no match for Kate’s.
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Tori Amos- Sugar (Milan 2011)
Because I’ve heard the majority of Tori Amos performances since 1996 due to my obsessive bootleg collecting, it takes a lot for her to really truly blow me away. I almost always enjoy her performances, but there has to be something unique or special for it to make the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. This Sugar is one of those special performances. The first thing I noticed is the absolute confidence and power she’s projecting out into the audience. That “yeah, you just try and fuck with me, see what happens” attitude that was so prevalent in every performance from 94-01 and which seemed to completely disappear after 2005 (unless she was playing a character) is back in spades, and its making the performances feel unpredictable again. I’ve heard over 100 performances of Sugar (I told you I was obsessive!) and there are moments here where I don’t know what’s going to happen with her inflections and tempo, and that’s thrilling because every performance becomes about those particular moments and feelings, with no disconnect between the artist and the material.
The next thing to stand out about this performance for me was how tender it was. There’s still the anger and moments of fury that have been a part of Sugar since 1998 (a performance where “you’re just a pussy, my sweet boy” isn’t delivered right is a shitty performance), but “when they find you out…” has an empathy and quiet sadness that gives the song another dimension. Even as she’s ready to take this boy to task and call him on his bullshit, there’s still an understanding of his pain. And of course, if we learned nothing else from the 90’s, we should know that utilizing the quiet/loud (or sad/angry) dynamic makes both parts of a song more powerful.
Finally, how amazing are those ending high notes? It seems like somebody went back in time and gave Tori her 1998 voice again. They’re so clean and expressive, giving a difficult song a perfect finish.
OK, I think I’ve gushed enough for now. But trust me, I could probably go on for a few more paragraphs.
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Brandi Carlile - That Year (live for Last.fm Discover)
Part of me is really hoping Brandi plays this (and/or her cover of Ray Lamontagne’s Burn) when I see her tonight, since you know, it’s a beautiful song and one of my favorites. The other part of me hopes she skips it since it’ll probably make me sad and depressed for the rest of the night, but that part’s lame and has bad taste.
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Bruce Springsteen- Growing Up (live at Max’s Kansas City, 1972)
It’s always fascinating to see footage of big stars from back when they were playing tiny clubs or the third band from the top of the bill, since it lets you see their talent (or lack thereof) in a rawer, less refined form and with fewer of the idiosyncrasies that develop over time. Here we get to see a more laid-back (and possibly stoned) Springsteen who even comes off a bit nervous in the beginning of the song. There’s none of the overdramatic enunciation and overblown instrumentation (be aware, those are things I love about Bruce though!) that defined him, but the songwriting quality was always there. The little Dylan-esque vocal moments also made me smile, because you can see Springsteen developing his own voice here but he’s still lifting from others a bit and it’s interesting to more clearly see that influence.
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Hole- Happy Ending Story (live on Radio 104.5 Philadelphia)
I believe this is the only taped full performance of Happy Ending Story, and I much prefer it over the studio version. Courtney’s vocal is more sedate, fitting the worn-out and nearly defeated tone of the lyrics better, and her yelling in the last minute sounds significantly stronger than on Nobody’s Daughter, where production fuzziness made it sound too ragged. I feel like this song is in some ways a sequel to “Dying” from Celebrity Skin, with Courtney reusing the quicksand metaphor, references to death, and hitting the same emotional beats. The yelling restores some power and saves the song from crossing into despair, which could’ve easily happened since there’s no hopefulness or anger in the song lyrically aside from in the 2nd verse, just a resigned sadness. By changing the vocal tone and DEMANDING that happy ending story instead of begging for it, as well as adding a new verse not present in the original demo, ending the song with “the battle it has just begun, he haunts me to the marrow of my grief”, Courtney lets the listener know she is trudging on and damaged but not defeated.
Photo reblogged from ☽ Bella Donna ☾ with 15 notes
(via fuckyeahstevienicks)
The ecstasy of music, performance…
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