DCD & CT Chgo Shows, a newcomer's view

[barger@aristotle.ils.nwu.edu (Jorn Barger)]

Running on the momentum of the London trip, I accompanied Chris and Vickie
to these two concerts Sunday and Monday.  I am not normally a concert-goer,
especially for groups I'm not very familiar with, and DCD and CT both fit
this category.  But I felt they were both groups I _should_ like, would
like if I ever broke through the surface- tension and communed with their
souls.  So I tagged along.

We arrived a couple of hours early for DCD, but the line already snaked
around the corner, solidly black-clad, solemn and silent.  (Chris joked
that if a car should crash thru the crowd, no judge would convict the
driver because the crowd was so indetectible in the night.)  The Chicago
show had been switched to this bigger venue (the Vic) when the Royal George
sold out so instantaneously.  The Vic too was now sold out, just barely. 
Everyone had tables to sit at, smoking was not allowed, and they announced
the bar would be closed during the show.

I had not heard enough of DCD to really remember what to expect, and for
the longest time I sat baffled, wondering what was going on that this
terribly sad, terribly antique sound was holding this hip audience so
_rapt_, and bringing such thunderous ovations between songs.  I could hear
the Bulgarian-voice influence, and the Gregorian chant, but it wasn't
moving me.  "This is just blues," I thought, "medieval blues, and I don't
like blues."

Finally though, with the next to last song, as I was nodding out, some
particularly rich harmonies swept thru me and captured my ear.  Thank the
goddess, the ovations were so tremendous that I got _six_ encores to do a
little catching up, for Lisa's voice began to curl thru my soul like rare
incense, like an angel cleansing me...  How I regret the hour I missed by
being simply _out-of-tune_.

Afterwards, one of C'n'V's friends said, "We could go out somewhere, but
the only place I'd feel like going is to _church_, and I haven't been in a
church in years,"  Someone else said, "I thought their live performance
couldn't live up to their albums-- little did I realize how far short of
the live sound the records fall!"  How miraculous to share this communion
with two thousand others!


Briefly, sadly, the Cocteau Twins the next night, though lovely, held no
candle to DCD.  The audience was more typical rock-types, rowdier,
drinking, smoking, standing squeezed up tight.  Liz's voice was mixed so
far down compared to Lisa's soaring naked flight, it was just cruel to
compare...