Boston Globe review of Dead Can Dance concert

[Dan Hall 20-Nov-1990 1152 <hall@buffa.enet.dec.com>]

I bought the Boston Globe yesterday, to see if any of their music critics
attended the same wonderful concert I did on Saturday night.  They did cover
it, and the critic was as awestruck as the rest of the spellbound audience.
I am posting his review of the concert here, in its entirely, without
permission.  I'm not adding anything because the review is dead on.
Suffice to say that if DCD is coming to your town, you *must* have or get
a ticket!

-Dan Hall

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By Paul Robicheau			DEAD CAN DANCE
SPECIAL TO THE GLOBE			At: The Berklee Performance Center
Monday, November 19, 1990		Saturday night

MUSIC REVIEW  "The haunting sounds of Dead Can Dance"

	Words like haunting, ethereal and soul-stirring are often used to
describe the sound of female Irish vocalists like Sinead O'Conner and Enya.
But another singer who truly deserves those superlatives mesmerized a packed
Boston theater audience this weekend, and we're not talking about Liz Fraser
of the Cocteau Twins.
	This voice belonged to Lisa Gerrard of Dead Can Dance, a 9-year old
group that delivered its stunning US concert debut Saturday at Berklee.
Dead Can Dance have long recorded for the British label 4AD, which is
coincidentally home to the Cocteau Twins, who gave a rare Boston show of their
own at the Orpheum last night.  Unlike the Cocteau Twins, Dead Can Dance
don't have the benefit of record distribution through an American major
label.  But the group has already sold out upcoming concerts in New York,
Chicago, San Francisco and Los Angeles during its six-city US tour, and
drew a near full house of 1,150 to Berklee.
	So what's the appeal?  Dead Can Dance conjure up a sound that is
beyond pop music, and, for that matter, beyond this time and place.  There
are traces of Gregorian chants and other music from the Renaissance and
Middle Ages, plus Middle Eastern and Irish traditional music.  Gerrard sings
in Latin, Arabic and English in addition to improvising her own language in
a glorious mezzo-soprano, gliding with operatic control into an angelic upper
register.  At times Saturday, she recalled Enya and Bulgarian female vocalists.
Mostly, she was possessed in a world of her own.
	But Gerrard wasn't on her own in this magical experience.  Brendan
Perry, the co-leader of Dead Can Dance, sang lead in a rich baritone on several
songs during the band's 110-minute set, which was nearly perfectly executed,
with a crystalline sound mix.  And the duo was also supported by another
five musician-singers, a few of whom would surround a single microphone to join
Perry in resonant harmonies behind Gerrard for hymn-like chants like "Orbis
and DeIgnis."  The musicians also created a gorgeous instrumental tapestry
of recorders, violin, drums, cymbals and bagpipes as well as synthesizer,
while Perry strummed his seven-stringed Turkish saz or cranked the handle of
his accordion-like hurdy-gurdy, an instrument that has roots in the 17th
century.
	Visually and sonically, however, the Dead Can Dance's spell revolved
around Gerrard, who stood behind a black-draped lectern in a white gown,
singing with her eyes closed or playing a yang chi-in, an instrument like
a hammered dulcimer.  At one point, she played only finger cymbals while
frozen in an eerie stare.
	Little was said to the audience, as the atmosphere was thick with
the group's austere delivery.  Yet maybe not all was serious in intent.  At
mid-set, Dead Can Dance performed "I Am Stretched On Your Grave," a song now
popularized by Sinead O'Conner, as the group must have known.  But Gerrard
didn't even sing it.  Perry did, supported by the acoustic instruments, and
the effect was as chilling as one O'Conner could ever hope to achieve.  Another
thing that drew a snicker, although it was surely not meant to be funny, was
the razzy gourd pipes played by Gerrard on the final encore.  But when she
joined the others in a relentless mantra-like percussion workout, Dead Can Dance
showed it could stir up a physical as well as a spiritual knockout.