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Live Review
by SashaS
11-3-2002
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More on: Marianne Faithfull
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| La femme Marianne F. |
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Live: Marianne Faithfull
Barbican Hall, London
Sunday, March 10, 2002
Female ‘Velvet Fog’ with a host of friends
Marianne Faithfull is a kind of artist who will always surprise... Few things pop into one’s mind during the show: one is The Doors’ song ‘People Are Strange’ and secondly, Bob Dylan and Lou Reed play unpredictable show and it is a lottery whether a goodie or not is gonna happen. Marianne Faithfull’s first show in a couple of years was a strange, sometime bizarre event. But one has to admit, this is la femme-eccentrique…
Performing first in the third ‘OnlyConnect’ – the annual series of concerts at the Barby where musicians from different backgrounds embark upon unlikely collaborations, such as Damon Albarn with Mali players (later in the month) – Faithfull’s show was her doing what she’s the best at, being herself. Coming onstage in a stylish black trouser-suit with a cigarette in her hand, she was welcomed by an ovation.
But, there was an amp-buzz, a feedback that made her stop the show after the third song, ‘Brain Drain’ (from ‘Broken English’, 1979); putting her foot down (that supports a surprisingly fit body) and refusing to continue until it was eliminated. She filled the time by telling jokes, so feeble the playground kids wouldn’t find funny, a fan telling another one but it was some abstract French humour that bounced off the concrete silence like a suicidal seagull… She then sang ‘Happy Birthday’ to a fan called Melissa but, fortunately, the techs sorted out the problem rather swiftly.
Following ‘Song For Nico’, from the ‘Kissin Time’ album, Faithfull required some make-up refreshment due to the “Emotional” content of the song and the cosmetics-roadie applied it onstage. (There would be a make-up reprise later in the set…) Towards the end of 2-hour-plus show (no interval), she even changed her high-heels for flats by sitting down centre stage. Water and tea drinking (2 cups) lady needs reading glasses very often to see the setlist, which she couldn’t locate in the first place (next to her right foot), often prompted by the lyrics-stand and, forgetting to go off before the encore: she apologises before playing it straight away. (My colleague dozes off contently.)
For collaborations, there was her band, alt-country rocker Will Oldham (a couple of songs), New York cult-guitarist Marc Ribot (5 tracks), Jarvis Cocker (on keys) and three other Pulp-ers. No Albarn or Blur, Billy Corgan or Beck, who all worked on the new album; the eve’s repertoire is a mixture of her old and new songs and covers, the most ill-advised being Lennon’s ‘Working Class Hero’; it’s supposed to be a post-modernist irony for her to sing it in her (pre-WWII Berlin) ‘Cabaret’-voiced statuesque style but it simply felt like an old bag… Far from freshness of the opening ‘Sex With Strangers’.
Strange night in Marianne-land but then, man, Faithfull is one of a kind.
SashaS
11-3-2002
Marianne Faithfull’s album ‘Kissin Time’ has been out since 04 March 2002 on Hut
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