The ovations last night at the Barbican wouldn’t stop at the last in Suzanne Vegas 25th Anniversary concerts of her 1987 album “Solitude Standing in the doorway”. The album was very much part of me and my partners adolecense.
She was a forerunner of the female singer song writer and she has inspired countless female singers like Tracy Chapman and KT Tunstell. But the distinct voice of Vega is hard to copy and also her personal style, the talk between the songs with anecdotes from when she wrote the songs could have gone on, I could listen to a whole evening of her just talking.
The audience was quite mature and relaxed and obviously knew their stuff, so when the band came on for a encore someone in the audience requested “Caramel” and with an impulsiveness that seemed very genuine she changed the set tracklist.
The first half was the songs from the Solitude album in the order they came in.
In the second half she gave us some more recent and more heavy songs like “Left of Centre” from “Pretty in Pink” and “Tombestone” from another film. Gerry Leonard on electric guitar gave the songs a updated feel with his more modern sound.
For me the highlights was Tom’s Diner, that I must have sung in the shower plenty of times in the last 25 years and to hear it as it should be sung and also a accompanied version in the finale was powerful.
There was also Michael Visceglia on bass, he was part of the band 25 years ago, Doug Yowell on Drums and the gorgeously tall Alison Balsom on trumpet.
The concert had the feel of a small pub gig, Suzannes very honest and funny account felt like a real tribute to the album that meant alot to so many people.
