Review from Britt Festival Show
From: gajeanne Sent: 28/08/2006 07:39
When it comes to k.d. lang, my heart sends my logic into fits of weird interpretive dance. Standing in 4 inches of silt that behaves like talc watching wasting deer browse under peeling madrones in heat that an expletive can’t describe, one could question the logic of the scene, but then I remember that this is a k.d. lang show... and there are lots of people in this line.
On a first come basis, the Britt allows a small number of lawn seat ticket holders to sit in front of the mostly subscriber reserved seating. The art of being in that small group has evolved in the community as an endurance test of sorts – if you are willing to stand in line long enough you can turn your lawn ticket into front row. Two years ago, I did, standing in line 13 hours – even for me, that was a bit much. But standing there in 2004, I noticed that there was a cottage industry with the local kids who will stand in line for you for cash – the city now even allows them to get permits to sleep in line overnight. Summer jobs for them, and for me, no sunburn, or silt in every pore, or two days in the same clothes, and to be somewhat coherent for show time is win, win. We got the blanket right below the center mike with the help of an industrious young man named Tanner. We were told by his friend that Tanner will buy a house by the time he is sixteen on his earnings. The beneficiary of lots of interpretive dance.
It was a clear still warm night. Holly Brook, the opening act, was the best artist I’ve ever heard open for k.d. Hard to pin her voice down… a more melodic Suzanne Vega, crossed with Natalie Merchant without the accent, maybe a little Sarah McL. She did a version of Joni Mitchell’s All I Want that would rival the original.
Jacksonville is in an area near deep blue lakes that sit on top of collapsed volcanoes, marble caves, and abandoned lava tubes. It is hard to escape the geology of the place. Some singers close their eyes to center themselves, k.d. came out and closed her eyes and centered an amphitheatre -- the epicenter of her own vocal seismological event. She arrived in a denim colored shirt long-sleeved with the cuffs fully open, white undershirt, rolled bandana around her neck, and blue jeans with the cuffs rolled up – barefoot. We heard second-hand that their gear went down a ravine and they were having to work with rented instruments on short notice. The band: a fully gray Teddy, Greg, David, and Danny. The set list: So It Shall Be, Helpless, Still Somehow Strives This Love, Miss Chatelaine, Don’t Smoke In Bed, impromptu Happy Birthday, Fever, Big Boned Gal, Don’t Let the Stars Get in Your Eyes, odd Tequila interlude, The Valley, Hallelujah, Constant Craving, Love Is Everything, Encore: Kiss to Build a Dream On, Simple. She teased the audience about missing the Emmy’s tonight, added “Mr. Chatelaine” to the songs first chorus, several times wryly referring to herself as “aging gracefully in the music industry” but adding that she digs getting older. She cozyied up to David during a steamy rendition of Fever. She added a couple of whimsical musical interludes commenting with a smile that the reason she was doing them was because she really liked playing the Britt. In sound check before the show her speaking voice sounded a bit hoarse and it seemed that as a seasoned singer she was working very well around some vocal adversity during the performance. She sounded great.
She had good energy and seemed happy. Her metta-morphosis, the transition from the big kahuna to the big karuna, seems to be progressing. There’s subduction and uplift and pressures that turn one part of you into something else though like geology some things happen very slowly. It may be hard to tell that she’s getting taller but I bet if you ran your fingers through her hair, you’d find the fossils of shells.
May kd have a just life, a good home.
May she be happy to sing and sing well.
May she be content, grateful, patient, and have good, good friends.
P.S. I love reading this board, I envy your loving optimism about her, and thank all of you who choose to share your enthusiasm. Some k.d. related events in my life had a blast zone of 30 miles instead of the 10 miles I expected – some were spiritually expensive, some indescribably meaningful. In the end, I can’t complain, I’m the one that got on the train.
