Re: Choses

[lishka@cernvax.cern.ch (christopher lishka)]

In <9110161504.AA05688@umaxc.weeg.uiowa.edu> sjudge@umaxc.weeg.uiowa.EDU writes:

>Laurie Anderson:  Has anyone seen her live? She came here to Iowa City for
>her Strange Angels tour, and was amazing!  It wasn't like the Home Of The 
>Brave in that she was the sole performer.  Monologues and music.  Wonderful!

I've seen her live three times now.  The first was the "Mr.
Heartbreak" tour.  It was great, as she had musicians like Adrian
Belew and Joy Askew in her band.  If you've seen _Home of the Brave_
then you probably have an idea of what this tour was like.

The second time I saw her was when the "Strange Angels" tour came to
Madison, Wisconsin.  The Oscar Mayer theatre was *packed* with people.
Like you said, this was completely solo, with Ms. Anderson accompanied
by recorded/sequenced sounds and visuals.  One of the most fascinating
times I ever had at a concert was when she first came out and did a
piece where she played the violin and sang, accompanied by visuals
(all I remember now is the word "Valhalla").  The sound was excellent,
and the whole theatre was completely filled with this amazing
focused music.  It is hard to describe really, but if you are
familiar with some of the Cocteau Twins harder stuff, it was a lot
like that.

The third time I saw her was at the beginning of this year.  She came
around to the University of Wisconsin Union Theatre.  This time the
performance was almost completely a monologue, with very little in the
way of video and almost no music.  She just stood up there and talked
for about 90% of it.  But what she talked about was very interesting,
and included her views of Jesse Helms and her trips to various places.
As usual, it contained a lot of "snippets" of what she has seen and
how she feels about many issues.  Although I think a lot of people
who were expecting her to play were let down, my wife and I both
enjoyed the performance very much, and there was much to think about
afterwards.

I find that she is a performer who does a lot of different stuff, but
seems to do a good job at most everything she does.  Certainly her
the last performance I saw was different from the other two, but it
was just as fascinating.  To be fair there is some of her stuff that I
don't much care for, but I have always enjoyed her performances (both
live and on video).

Two of the concerts I would love to see again would be "Mr.
Heartbreak" and "Strange Angels".  Luckily, much of "Mr. Heartbreak"
can be found in _Home of the Brave_, but I don't know of any recorded
material from the "Strange Angels" tour.  I am not sure if film would
do the material justice, though, because for some of it you just had
to be there.

						.oO Chris Oo.