Venue:
Buxton Opera House
Date: 25/07/2018
A big of Natalie, this night couldn’t come around soon enough. On a sweltering night in Buxton she cam on stage at 8pm prompt accompanied by her long time sidekick on acoustic guitar Erik Della Penna. For just over 2 hours they entertained us with a marvellous set covering the whole of her solo output and a smattering of 10,000 Maniacs songs. I have been a fan off his since In My Tribe which on its release got played regularly for a number of years – possibly my most played album for a few years I enjoyed it that much. Last night for the first 5 or 6 numbers she played without any conversation with the audience – the highlight of this section being a delightful Motherland. Then she started chatting profusely and she was warm. funny and very slightly coquettish. The shot continued with a few missed lines for Life is Sweet which prompted a fit of giggles and repeat attempts to get it right. She playfully admonished herself and then later on Build a Levee Erik made a bomb note and she jokingly suggested ‘he should go now’. Aside from that neither put a foot wrong in a wonderful night that included highlights such as Verdi Cries, Ophelia and Carnival. However the real emotional high for me was King of May. This song has deep personal resonance for my wife and me due to a family loss. I wrote to Natalie when I bought the tickets asking if she could play it at this gig. Looking at Setlist.fm she had played once in last four years yet played it the night preceding this gig in Ilkeley. Lo and behold as the set neared its finale she played it – I like to think she played it in response to my request but I guess I will never know. Whatever an entirely enjoyable night that concluded with her handing out flowers to members of the audience.
The audience:
Excellently behaved – no knob heads and loud applause. At the ned during the encore Natalie told us all the venues she played on this tour were places she had not been to before and regaled us with the story of asking her driver to stop at Stonehenge, Captain Cook’s birthplace etc. She thanked us for effectively paying for her holiday. On this performance Natalie you can come back every year.
It made me think..
She might have the appearance of a school mistress but she has some sassy dance moves.
I fell in love with Natalie last week. It seems you did last night. Pistols at dawn?
Yes indeed I did. It was second time I saw her. First time was when she toured Leave Your Sleep which was a much more scholarly and somewhat stiffer concert. Last night she had magnetism and her voice was perfect. A smaller venue added to the intimacy -900 packed house is about the right size. I think she has an affinity with this country too.
Did she do Verdi Cries? That would have been worth the admission price alone.
Well, and indeed, jell – had wanted to go this but couldn’t make that particular date. Hope she’s back before too long.
I understand and approve of her thinking in touring places that are frequently missed, but I would still like to have seen a London date.
Sounds like you caught a super gig.
I certainly did @Carl. I would have preferred not to do a 120 mile round trip but the fact that there was no support and she came on stage at 8pm prompt meant that leaving at 10.15 still got me home for 11.45pm which is no later that when I have been to some Birmingham gigs.
She seemed very relaxed and was having a lot of fun.
Ditto last week at Komedia in Bath. Outstanding evening’s entertainment, and like you say, starts on time, plays a blinder, relaxes and enjoys herself and leaves when done.
I bought her boxed set for £30 the following day from the dodgers, so I now have a couple of doubles and they will get passed to my brother, who will almost certainly fall in love with her himself as a result.
Bath set list:
Motherland
Nursery Rhyme of Innocence and Experience
Build a Levee
Don’t Talk (10,000 Maniacs song)
Break Your Heart
Texas
Dust Bowl (10,000 Maniacs song)
Golden Boy
Carnival
Spring and Fall: To a Young Child
Vain and Careless
Maggie Said
Which Side Are You On? (The Almanac Singers cover)
River
Verdi Cries (10,000 Maniacs song)
“Encore:”
Tell Yourself
Where I Go
Hey Jack Kerouac (10,000 Maniacs song)
Seven Years
Weeping Pilgrim
Sally Ann
Cowboy Romance
What’s the Matter Here? (10,000 Maniacs song)
The Living
Saint Judas
Kind & Generous
I am glad you posted this @SteveT as I had the feeling leaving the same concert with mixed feelings would put me in a small minority of one and posting a review might result in the need to duck. Don’t get me wrong, I love Ms M and her albums are amongst my very favourite. I just feel that, skilled guitarist as Eric is, and stellar as her voice is, 25 songs arranged for just acoustic guitar and voice is a challenge I wasn’t always up to. My attention did wander from time to time. It was a times spellbinding (Texas I thought was astonishingly powerful) but not always so. The three songs on piano I thought, again, were IMHO somewhat wandering and imprecise: Verdi Cries, yes a highpoint of her recorded output, slowing down at times to a standstill while the next chord was located. I suspect we were at the same Symphony Hall gig about 6-8 years ago too, and I’m going to plump for the academic with band approach rather than the uber-relaxed in concert.
Different strokes etc.
I didn’t care for the Symphony Hall gig as much because a) she didn’t play any of my favourite songs until the encore and b) Leave your Sleep is my least favourite of her albums.
Its funny how our viewpoints differ – I left thinking I wished she had played longer. It wasn’t a strain at all – Don’t talk and Tell Yourself were absolute pin drop moments. I wish we had gotten Sally Ann which vulpes got but we got King of May so it balanced itself out. I just thought she was really charming and it would appear the rest of the audience did too.
I mentioned this to a musician friend. He assured me 45-60 minutes was all he ever wished to hear of anyone no matter how good they were. He’d seen Bruce several times and walked out after an hour. It’s a view, fairly extreme but I know where he’s coming from.
On the way home after the gig, my buddy and I discussed how we’d personally found the evening, how it had unfolded for us, and we concluded that we’d both experienced the same delightful arc of discovery, despite initial misgivings.
Natalie’s voice, while a thing of wonder, doesn’t have a particularly huge range. Eric’s guitar part was deliberately understated, with infrequent flourishes. The majority of the songs she chose are in a minor key. Not perhaps the recipe to guarantee that an extended, relaxed tempo, two hour camp-fire session would remain free of nod-off tendencies.
However, as we discovered, we’d both found that the tone of the evening had been perfectly judged. We’d both found ourselves relaxing into the fun of it all; the repeated verse, the forgotten lyric, the fluffed line, they all contributed to what felt like an intimate, homely session. We shared her conversations with those in the front rows, we laughed as she confiscated some poor sod’s mobile phone when she spotted him; “Oh! Making a movie are we? I’ll have that…” We laughed, he shrunk. But she made sure she put a neat selfie on the phone before he got it back at the end of the evening. We heard about their adventures wandering the streets of Bath the night before, soaking up the place. Eric flipped over the charts on the floor in front of him as Natalie asked the audience what song they’d like to hear next; the whole thing was low key and friendly, rehearsed but not to the point of sterility, slightly ramshackle but not to the point of annoyance.
It was after all advertised as “An evening with…” and that was just what it felt like. We loved it.
Spot on Vulpes. At the Buxton show a lady in the audience gave her a bag of buttons from a shop in Ilkely. Apparently at the previous nights gig Natalie had commented about this fantastic button shop.
She also gave flowers to random members of the audience. It may have been rehearsed but it didn’t seem like it to me. It was like going to a party and your best mate picking up the guitar and entertaining everyone there.
I, too, would have loved to have been there but couldn’t make the date. And now I see that Where I Go was on the setlist – my single favorite Natalie Merchant song, with or without the other Maniacs
Having found her an annoying mare when I went to see her in that London a couple of years back, this sounds much more inviting. But I bet I would still prefer my 10k Maniacs memory from a zillion years back. Verdi Cries, solo, the encore is as much as you need.
I’m just enjoying a NM comp on Spotty on hols as recommended by@vulpes-vulpes and funnily enough have a week’s holiday in August down the road from Buxton so I hope there a gig on as good as this one clearly was.
At the very last minute I realised I’d bought two tickets for the Komedia last week. The GLW wasn’t keen but my boy, 11 years old, and a Cara Dillon fan, quickly agreed to be my gig buddy. We both very much enjoyed the event and I’d echo what others have said about it being very much an ‘audience with’ style affair and she was very much more relaxed and good humoured than I expected. Oh, and thanks for the set list Vulpes.
I went to the Cheltenham show (100 mile round trip). It was at Pittville Pump Rooms, a delightful venue.
It sounds pretty similar. NM had the staff open the large French windows at side and back of the hall, as it was so hot. She walked about with a radio mike, picked a crowd member to sing with her, wandered outside into the park (!) still singing, and seemed like she was having a ball.
The first few numbers seemed a bit one-paced but then there were changes of pace. I don’t think her vocal range is at all limited. She seems to sing within herself, and when she lets go, the timbre and high notes are astonishing.
The guitarist was sympathetic, mostly fingerpicked accompaniment with a few spare solos.
The piano playing in her encores was a bit erratic. She’d play part of a number and stop. Finishing with ‘Beloved Wife’ from ‘Tigerlily’ was inspired – she did play this through.
An intimate and enjoyable night.
The Mastertapes programme from 2013 was repeated yesterday. It’s still on iPlayer along with the “B Side” extra.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b021mjc4/topics/Tigerlily
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