|
 | kd lang with the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra Adelaide Entertainment Centre, Sun 20 Feb Over the last two decades Canada's kd lang has reinvented herself as Nashville country singer with the sublime 'Shadowland', inventive contemporary adult-pop artist with the Grammy award winning 'Ingenue', and most recently as interpreter of the finest songwriters that her homeland, Canada, has to offer on last year's 'Hymns Of The 49th Parallel'. And it is on this latest treasure trove that kd has chosen to focus during her latest Australian tour. As well as an incredibly professional quartet of backing musicians, which featured not only her long time pianist Teddy Borowiecki and slide guitarist par excellence Greg Leisz (incidentally also a longtime Joni Mitchell collaborator), her Adelaide performance also featured a large string section from our own illustrious Adelaide Symphony Orchestra. However, as with concerts interstate on this tour, these strings were undermiked to such an extent that one wonders why lang has chosen to include them, since a couple of synth players would have managed just as well. Starting with a seductive take on Don't Smoke In Bed, there was little doubt that lang was coasting along. Technically there was much to admire in this rather short concert; however she displayed little in the way of passion or identification with this predominately Canadian showcase. Understandably both her take on Roy Orbison's Crying and Leonard Cohen's hymnlike ode to desire Hallelujah drew the greatest applause, in fact standing ovations from a large and appreciative crowd. And the audience was swept along with her now familiar tricks of bending and holding notes to great effect. There was also little doubt that by the time that Adelaide had got to experience the 'Hymns Of the 49th Parallel' material, that lang's identification had grown immeasurably since initially recording it. However, given the price of the tickets (ranging from $99 to over $200), the audience should have been treated to a much longer show than that presented. Including two encores, the concert only last just over an hour. Nevertheless it was an hour of beautiful sung, if not overly engaging, material. In the early 'nineties, it was Madonna who rather laconically opined that Elvis was alive and indeed beautiful. Perhaps a decade or so later a more appropriate comparison would lay with the great crooner, Bing Crosby.  | |
The latest issue available now!     |
All content copyright dB Magazine