Miss Natalie Merchant
mhardy6647
Posts: 33,895
We saw Natalie Merchant last night at the Colonial Theater in Bethlehem, NH last night.
This is a favorite venue of mine; very small (maybe 250 seats) and with a bar in the back. Before the show, drinks are also available on a patio outside.
The only problem is that it's not air conditioned, so it was a little stuffy last night.
Long story short, it was a very, very good show. Just Miss Merchant
and a guitarist. She was kind of sweltering (I was gonna say hot, but that might be misinterpreted), at one point ducking offstage and coming back with a ladies' folding fan. She vamped a little on the "language" of Spanish women of another era using such fans. She was both a little prim and a lot charming, and her voice was predictably incredible.
She also talked about (and sang), e.g., misheard Monkee lyrics from her childhood (Sometime in the Morning, which the thought contained the line You'll need no underwear tonight*), a story about a run in with her and a long-ago housemate's skunk-sprayed dog (with an admonition that tomato juice doesn't work as a de-scenting treatment), and some riffing (with snippets of semi-inappropriate songs) from her childhood experience with hootenannies from summer camp in New York.
Oh, also a little bit of Fire and Rain, including her rendition of a friend's misheard lyrics
"Oh, won't you put down your Chinese Jesus, you gotta help me make a stand..."
She ended her set with a rather spirited snippet of I Fought the Law (as essayed by the Clash) as a singalong -- mostly as a measure of how much the crowd was flagging in the warm venue. We were all actually pretty perky and we were "rewarded' with a pretty beefy encore.
Her encore was both long (four songs) and outstanding, ending with (and I guess I shoulda seen this coming) Kind and Generous from her album Ophelia.
That turned into a spontaneous (well... she probably knew it would happen, although she didn't prompt for it!) call and response I want to thank you, thank you from the audience. Almost like the Dead's symbiosis with their audience on Not Fade Away.
It was just a ton of fun (which I didn't necessarily expect)!
___________
* Actual line, You need no longer wear a disguise -- but all y'all Monkees fans
probably knew thatalready!
This is a favorite venue of mine; very small (maybe 250 seats) and with a bar in the back. Before the show, drinks are also available on a patio outside.
The only problem is that it's not air conditioned, so it was a little stuffy last night.
Long story short, it was a very, very good show. Just Miss Merchant
and a guitarist. She was kind of sweltering (I was gonna say hot, but that might be misinterpreted), at one point ducking offstage and coming back with a ladies' folding fan. She vamped a little on the "language" of Spanish women of another era using such fans. She was both a little prim and a lot charming, and her voice was predictably incredible.She also talked about (and sang), e.g., misheard Monkee lyrics from her childhood (Sometime in the Morning, which the thought contained the line You'll need no underwear tonight*), a story about a run in with her and a long-ago housemate's skunk-sprayed dog (with an admonition that tomato juice doesn't work as a de-scenting treatment), and some riffing (with snippets of semi-inappropriate songs) from her childhood experience with hootenannies from summer camp in New York.
Oh, also a little bit of Fire and Rain, including her rendition of a friend's misheard lyrics
"Oh, won't you put down your Chinese Jesus, you gotta help me make a stand..."
She ended her set with a rather spirited snippet of I Fought the Law (as essayed by the Clash)
as a singalong -- mostly as a measure of how much the crowd was flagging in the warm venue. We were all actually pretty perky and we were "rewarded' with a pretty beefy encore.Her encore was both long (four songs) and outstanding, ending with (and I guess I shoulda seen this coming) Kind and Generous from her album Ophelia.
That turned into a spontaneous (well... she probably knew it would happen, although she didn't prompt for it!) call and response I want to thank you, thank you from the audience. Almost like the Dead's symbiosis with their audience on Not Fade Away.
It was just a ton of fun (which I didn't necessarily expect)!
___________
* Actual line, You need no longer wear a disguise -- but all y'all Monkees fans
probably knew thatalready!
Comments
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Saw her last year at the Chicago Theater, and, thought it was a very good show. She dies have a lot of personality.
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(emphasis added)Saw her last year at the Chicago Theater, and, thought it was a very good show. She d[o]es have a lot of personality.
... which I wasn't necessarily expecting! I had expected her to be rather distant, and she just wasn't.
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Yeah, she has stuck me as a primadonna. May be not so much? Confidence can be mistaken for such I guess.The best way to predict the future is to invent it.
It is imperative that we recognize that an opinion is not a fact. -
... oh, she's confident, there was no mistaking that.
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Love this song.
https://youtu.be/VQ_Wqtnlv4U Most people just listen to music and watch movies. I EXPERIENCE them. -
Yes, great song
She did (of course) perform Carnival last night, to good effect.
