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                          Suzanne Vega

Suzanne Vega finished her  British  tour  at  the  Oxford  Apollo
Theatre  on  sunday  30th November and played an excellent set of
nearly 90 minutes.

I was rather surprised to find the (largish) theatre packed since
Suzanne  Vega  has  not  had huge success in England - one top 40
single, and a couple of TV  appearances.  However,  the  audience
appeared  to be c. 95% students which suggests there are an awful
lot of Suzanne Vega albums lying  around  flats  and  bedsits  in
Oxford.  She  is  obviously the Dylan/Cohen/Mitchell of the post-
punk generation, and judging by the way  the  tour  posters  were
being  snapped  up outside the theatre there will be many a young
yuppie with a picture of Suzanne over their bed.

Support act were a duo called Cry No Tears who, judging by  their
age, and confidence on stage, were probably ex-session or backing
musicians. They suceeded in winning over the audience and putting
them  in  a  good  frame  of  mind for the main attraction of the
evening. I hardly saw anyone sneak off to the bar.

Suzanne Vega arrived on stage to  an  ecstatic  welcome  and  the
audience  appreciation  grew throughout the set. This was despite
the fact that her vocals were inaudible on  the  first  song  and
although the sound mix improved after that, there were times when
her voice got  lost  in  the  overall  sound.  Her  backing  band
consisted of guitar, bass, drums and synthesisers, and there were
some amongst my friends who felt that too often the band tried to
dominate  Suzanne's  songs  -  the  guitarist was even given some
short solos: which seemed inappropriate.

Suzanne played all the songs of her debut album  plus some  newer
material -  'Marlene on the Wall'  getting the strongest ovation.
She seemed rather nervous on stage but perhaps  she  is  used  to
playing  smaller halls. Certainly, she seemed almost surprised at
the enthusiasm of the audience, being rather nonplussed by shouts
of  'we  love  you'  from  the  balcony!  However,  she  grew  in
confidence as the set progressed and began to relate some of  the
songs'  histories;  remarking  at  one stage that Leonard Cohen's
songs were marginally more cheerful then her own!

The audience exploded into appluase and foot-stomping at the  end
of  the  set  and  Suzanne  returned  without  the band to do two
numbers, the first of which was performed  without  accompaniment
and  the  second  with  her  guitar.  The audience still were not
satiated and called her back for a second encore  for  which  the
band  also appeared.  She announced the song they played as being
'really bad' suggesting she was running out of  material.  Anyway
it  was actually quite good - certainly good enough for the crowd
who called for and got a third encore. This time  Suzanne  played
with  just  the  synthesiser  player  and  performed  a  new song
(perhaps the rest of the band had not learnt it yet).

Despite the problems with the sound mix it was an excellent show.
Listening  to  the album afterwards I felt less satisfied with it
than at any earlier hearing;  I  found  myself  longing  for  the
excitement  of  the  live  performance. Well, there is always the
next tour - I am sure she will be back many times in  the  future
(unless the American audiences demand her constant attention).