I've never reviewed a concert on here before and this one is a bit less "concert review" and a bit of an indulgent "my history with this artist" thing. Copy and paste job from my "social media" outlet
I went to see Ms Vega in concert last night in Lincoln.
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I have never really considered myself "a big Suzanne Vega fan" but she's a name that's been around ever since I first started paying attention to music. I remember very well in 1988 summer holidays when I was 12 and nearly 13, we had a family holiday touring France, Belgium and Holland. In Belgium we stayed with posh family friends who had an au pair for their kids. She was raving on about Suzanne Vega. Me being on the verge of adolescence, of course I wasn't going to listen to some woman banging on about this quiet mousy singer. My loss. But the name stuck. Then there was the DNA remix of Tom's Diner which was everywhere in 1991-2.
THEN the 99.9 album and "cool Vega with beats" popping up on The Late Show etc. I loved "Blood Makes Noise" and noted it. Taped "9 Objects of Desire" off a friend in 1996 and sort of listened to it but not that much. By then, the older singles beyond Tom's Diner, had crept into consciousness. 1999 or 2000, bought the Tried and True compilation. 2011, bought Solitude Standing on tape in a charity shop for 20p. That's all I owned - a compilation and one tape plus a "pirated" album .
So I got in a mild panic about last night's concert, thinking "I haven't shown her enough respect in my life, I gotta listen to more albums", an exercise which I really enjoyed but it was rushed...
And yet....she managed to play for 75 minutes with only 4 or 5 songs that I didn't really know. Which shows that she is one of those artists that can get under your skin without you realising. And EVERY song including the unfamiliar ones, was fab. And she didn't play Caramel, which I don't like. Yay.
She was intriguing to watch, she was in fine voice (and is no slop on the guitar) but it was almost a bit cabaret, as if she was playing "the standards", and even her between-song banter came across not so much as banter but as scripted monologue that would call for audience reaction and then somewhat ignore it (regarding "which song to play next", when it's obvious she's going to play what's next on her set list, no spontaneous requests). And she pulled this off actually - it wasn't charmless at all.
I was far more blissed out than I expected to be during Marlene on the Wall, Blood Makes Noise, Small Blue Thing, Left of Centre, Luka, Gypsy and The Queen and the Soldier. In Liverpool never grabbed me in the first place, and Tom's Diner did feel a bit like "churning it out" although she acted like she was enjoying it . And other songs I didn't know, still all good. I'd have liked Last Year's Troubles but hey ho."