Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
Buildings retain their memories, or so the theory of some would have you believe, yet stretch the idea to a sporting venue or a music hall and somehow the presumption of ideas seeping into the walls and being held and aiding those following is not so daft.
Memory is after all what makes lyrics come alive, what makes a song tick with the resonance of a heartbeat and the story behind those combinations seem fruitful and soul affirming. For New York raised Suzanne Vega, memory is what makes her own stories come alive, that dip into a musician’s soul which captures elements of life and which gives meaning to others as they go through their own quiet path of life.
If memory is retained then the previous night’s excursions and bountiful excesses delivered by Elvis Costello came seeping out of the Philharmonic Hall’s walls and sat down and took a chair front and centre and watched as Suzanne Vega returned to Liverpool for the first time in eight years and recalled her life through song and the small wonderful sideway step of explanations; some which had been heard before, one that would never be repeated again, a true you had to be there moment.
The Philharmonic Hall’s audience sat almost with quiet baited breath throughout the first few songs, perhaps the previous night’s outing having taken more out on the collective reasoning than dared thought but it was the sign of the attentive and thrilled that sat and marvelled as Ms. Vega performed songs that broke the ice, such as Fat Man & Dancing Girl, The Fool’s Complaint, Caramel, Crack in the Wall and the outstanding Marlene on the Wall.
The songs flowed, the stage darkness surrounding Ms. Vega and her musical cohort Gerry Leonard kept at bay by the feel of the effervescent and the illuminating and the stage presence of one of New York’s finest adopted daughters all consuming.
With a wonderful explanation of the song In Liverpool which rightly had the Philharmonic crowd enthralled and songs such as Don’t Uncork What You Can’t Contain, I Never Wear White, Tom’s Diner, Song of The Stoic and the slight pressure heaped on her shoulders by the calling out of Solitude Standing from an audience member but a challenge equally met and given great applause to, this was yet another evening inside the Philharmonic Hall where musical ghosts sat in a perfect gathering, soaking up the atmosphere and relishing in the beauty of Ms. Vega’s performance.
A night in which to be captivated was to be expected but one in which was subtly entrancing.
Ian D. Hall