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QPAC Concert Hall - Tue Apr 29
Shy, reserved Slava Grigoryan may not have a strongly-developed stage presence – at several points during his half-hour set, it seems like he’s apologising for being on stage – but his guitar playing, including a gorgeous Isaac Albéniz piece, is great.
I saw K.D. Lang for the first time as a very little kid – my parents brought me to one of her shows, maybe attempting to expand my cultural horizons – and my lingering memory of her as a witty, understated and generous performer holds up for tonight. Tonight, Lang sticks mainly to slower tunes – the whole concert has a reflective, drinking-whiskey-in-a-smoke-filled-room-late-at-night kind of vibe – but she is clearly a seasoned performer, like a more laid-back Tom Waits or a less angry Neil Young. If those things sound like backhanded compliments, they’re really not. Lang has a varied history as a performer – she spent the eighties singing country tunes, and the nineties recording smoky ballads that played around with gender and sexuality, and has spent this decade bringing the two together. The five piece band – keys, drums, pedal steel, bass and guitar – are first rate, although as Lang points out, it’s curious that at this stage in her life, she has surrounded herself with five young men. Lang is unafraid to let the band share the limelight – introducing each member, and letting them all play solos – and, as a unit, they work extremely well together. Tonight’s repertoire is taken from throughout Lang’s career – a few of the aforementioned smoky nineties ballads, some pedal steel-heavy country tunes, and a few covers from her Hymns Of The 49th Parallel, including what is probably the only version of Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah that stands up to Jeff Buckley’s. Lang and band stretch the friendship a little with three (count them) encores, but each one is great, so they can be forgiven for that.
ALASDAIR DUNCAN
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