Re: Patti – Meltdown – 23 June 2005

[Andrew F Wilson <andrewfwilson>]

Stand Bravely Brothers 
Royal Festival Hall, London

By Maddy Costa
The Guardian, Saturday, 25 June 2005

It was at times hard to see what Patti Smith's thoughtful tribute to
Bertolt Brecht had to do with the "theatre of the streets" he
celebrated in prose, or with the prostitutes and scrubwomen, sailors
and lowlifes he animatedly depicted in song. Technical hiccups
notwithstanding, the evening felt too smooth, too elegant, too
well-dressed. Even Smith wore a frock for the occasion, a black floaty
number that she clutched at nervously as surprise rippled across the
auditorium.

But when a lurid argument flared up between a homophobic security
guard and a group of gay men in the audience, the character of the
evening came into sharp relief. These are songs for the misfits in
society, those living outside the norm. And they were being performed
by some of the most compelling eccentrics in music.

The London Sinfonietta set the tone exquisitely with a pristine
rendering of the overture from The Threepenny Opera, an intoxicating
dance of careening discords. From then on, the evening's charge came
from the singers who were possessed by their song, rather than simply
performing it.

David Thomas sidled on stage like an oleaginous preacher and prowled
through Alabama Song in the terrifying wheeze of a satanic imp. Marc
Almond injected thrilling drama into Bilbao Song, diving into its
romantic eddies, emerging furious and proud. More mesmerising still
was the New York singer Antony: he looked like a bashful schoolboy,
sounded like Billie Holiday at her most careworn, and delivered
Surabaya Jonny in a voice molten with anguished desire.

Fittingly, they were all outshone by Smith herself. For Mack the Knife
her voice was lethally seductive, glinting as it sliced through James
Crabb's accordion and Lenny Kaye's guitar. Pirate Jenny followed, and
that voice suddenly became as mottled as a mangy alley cat. The song
was a mess: Smith forgot verses, hit wrong notes and stopped
everything to point out her errors. But it was glorious - and, for a
brief moment, caught the spirit of anarchy that Brecht sought to
inject into theatre.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/arts/reviews/story/0,,1514442,00.html