Fumbling Towards Ecstasy

Sarah McLachlan @ The State Theater, Minneapolis, MN 2014.7.08

After a long pause, Sarah McLachlan has returned to tour with her full show, this time back to the intimate venue of The State Theater, where she played on the Fumbling Towards Ecstasy tour in 1994.  At this point in her career, it would be nice to see Sarah revisit her 25 years of material (I would have been happy to see the entire Touch album performed (or Fumbling)), but she acknowledges more enthusiasm for her new material which comprised a large portion of the set, forcing omission of any track from her first two albums.  With the release of 2010s Laws of Illusion, her newer material has seemed flat, lackluster, and a little formulaic, conforming to her most stereotypical sound.  She even acknowledged her writing trends toward writing the same story over.  Fortunately, the live performances breathe a fuller life into the songs, and the newest material from Shine On came across well along with her mid-career tracks.  Playing live is really where McLachlan shines, and in small, close environment like this one songs like Witness came across with a blues-club kind of feel.  But, the real energy of the show could be felt in the now live-set staples of Fumbling Towards Ecstasy and Fear, the latter showcasing the extreme limits of her unique voicing (and after a day off she seemed to hit all the vocal notes perfectly).  Overall, the set could have benefited from some tracks that stand out by featuring a more kinetic tempo (Plenty, Into The Fire) or the depth of McLachlan's younger perspective (Wait, anything from Touch).  What we did get was, however, satisfying and impressive as always: Mclachlan still comes across as an elite musician.  Hopefully her future will hold more frequent touring and glimpses back into the pre-Surfacing days.

+: Fear, Fumbling Towards Ecstasy, Possession, Sweet Surrender

-: No Touch, Into the Fire, Plenty, Wait

Setlist: Flesh and Blood - Building a Mystery -In Your Shoes -Adia -Answer -Broken Heart - Fallen -World on Fire -Loving You Is Easy -Monsters -Stupid -Song for My Father -I Will Remember You -Brink of Destruction -Hold On -Love Beside Me -Fumbling Towards Ecstasy -Witness -Fear - Sweet Surrender- Possession- Angel- Beautiful Girl -Ice Cream -The Sound That Love Makes

St Augustine in Hell

From this week's stupid and annoying files:  John Piper has claimed that watching Game of Thrones is like re-crucifying Christ.  Not because it depicts the most horrific methods of violence and an incredible disregard for the integrity of human subjectivity.  No, just because it contains nudity.  After taking a lot of pain killers for my spinning head, I finally think I understand this.  Not that understanding makes the statement any less stupid.  If we take the fundamental theme of Game of Thrones to be power, in a Foucauldian sense of meta-narrative (along with Nietzsche and Adler), then it involves all of life in this world.  Piper would seem to take a Paulian and Gnostic view of Christianity which rejects everything in the material world as evil.  Only the spititaul can be good.  Anything that feels positive would be an attraction to this world, which would seem to be why we can discount violence as a bad thing.  Assuming Piper isn't a psychopath, he apparently isn't attracted to abhorrent violence.  But, he may actually have an attraction to sexuality, and any glimpse of something to which he has a natural affinity (such as the expected female nudity in Thrones) would be a quick trip into the downward spiral that is real life.  Even St Augustine dealt with the natural attractiveness of prurient interests, and took a far less extremist view.  If catching a glimpse of nudity is so severe that is an act of re-crucifying, then I think it's safe to say we shouldn't be dealing with Game of Thrones.  We should be more concerned with rejecting all of popular culture to the point of resisting going out on the street (and certainly not the beach).  If Piper wants to promote a ascetic way of life that's fine (although I would think rejecting a God-given life in God-created reality to live in a self-deluding fantasy in hopes of finally going to another world would be possibly the worst sin imaginable).  But if he is really serious about that, then he should go live in a hole in the desert, or  at least in a monastery and not participate in the cultural world at all.  Directing his remarks to cultural artifacts that are themselves created out of the real history of thousands of years of human atrocities and human desires completely misses the point.  The real problem is Piper himself, who has a motivation to live (as he rightfully should) but rejects it because of extremist ideology. This resembles the movements to outlaw everything fun -sex, alcohol, dancing, etc- because "I want to do it but I can't, so no one else should be able to do it either."  Piper and his ilk should either enter the real world and attempt to make it better - to promote the good, or he should find that hole in the desert and ignore culture altogether while wasting his time waiting to be saved from reality.  Whatever he is doing now isn't helping - either the world at large or the cause of the religion he invokes.  It's just annoying.

Sleke Dayton 2014 Airfest - Lacrosse WI

2014: The return of the airshow - small, but a new start.  Hopefully an increase in public outreach funding and policies can expand each year until we get back to normal.

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Driven to Tears

Sting with Paul Simon @ Xcel Energy Center, St Paul, MN -  2014.02.23

In another one of Sting's experiments, this tour featured the most unusual pairing on such a big name tour.  Early 80s New Wave meets 70s folk.  Many reviews note that Simon exists on another level than Sting in the history of music.  I don't subscribe to that point of view.  Sting maintains a large radio presence beyond Simon's, and while Simon's influence is undeniable, it would seem that Sting's has become just as large (see Maroon 5, Goyte, Bruno Mars, etc.)  Can anyone name a Simon song from the last 25 years?  For Sting, no one can name one from this century, as its seems both artist have fallen into the same trap - revolving around their mythical status rather than moving forward (although a lot of the blame for that rests on society and the industry rather than the artist).  In terms of talent, I think the translation worked better with Sting's version of Simon than Simon's version of Sting (Fragile, for one was very flat and uninspiring), but Simon's most iconic tracks came across well for a responsive crowd.  Personally, those 70s songs just felt out of place to me, while Simon's 80s world-beat influence mixed better with Sting's tracks.  The inclusion of the lackluster song Brand New Day really strikes me as bad choice for a duet, not only because it's boring but because of the lyrical innuendo.   The real disappointment was, of course, the failure of Sting's equipment during Roxanne, which led to omission of They Dance Alone, Desert Rose and Every Breath You Take.  This failure only highlights the pitfalls of an overly elaborate production.  Sting and band should have been able to walk over to the half of the stage that was working and play, but when an artist is this far in to a perfectly choreographed performance, there is just no way to do that.  I would have preferred that they swapped sets at that point, handing over to Simon's band and then resumed playing afterwards (stopping for an intermission to fix the problem if necessary).  The speed with which the show moved on seemed like a cheat.  The loss of Every Breath wasn't a loss at all, but it would have been nice to hear the other two, particularly because this is the first tour (to stop here) that features Sting playing bass for them. These omissions also have more of an impact because after a 21 year wait Sting finally has his best band back together - Dominic Miller, David Sancious on keyboard, and Vinnie Colaiuta on drums.  The addition of Peter Tickell also adds to the band, particularly his fiddle solo on Driven to Tears, and the vocals of Jo Lawry are welcome addition as well. While this band brought a full set to tour in 2013, they unfortunately skipped the Twin Cities (as Sting always does when he is on bass).  The set could have been better, as it originally included Love is the Seventh Wave, which would seem to fit better than Simon than any other song.  Higher energy tunes such as King of Pain or If I Ever Lose My Faith would have helped as well, although they may have drawn a sharper distinction from the low-key Simon numbers.  Sting seemed in top form and the vocals on Message in a Bottle were perhaps the best I've heard him sing, the sustain and impact in this rendition were unmatched.  Now that Sting has his  real band back together, let's hope for more touring and another stop here with a full set, without any gimmicks.


+: Message in a Bottle, Driven to Tears, I Hung My Head, The Hounds of Winter, No Every Breath You Take
-: No Love is the Seventh Wave, They Dance Alone, Desert Rose or King of Pain, If Ever Lose My Faith

Setlist: Brand New Day - Boy in the Bubble(Paul Simon cover) - Fields of Gold - Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic - Englishman in New York - I Hung My Head - Driven to Tears - Walking on the Moon - Mother and Child Reunion (Paul Simon cover) - Fragile - America(Simon & Garfunkel cover) - Message in a Bottle - The Hounds of Winter - They Dance Alone (aborted) -Roxanne - Desert Rose (omitted) - The Boxer(Simon & Garfunkel cover)- Bridge Over Troubled Water (Simon & Garfunkel cover) - Every Breath You Take (omitted) - Late in the Evening (Paul Simon cover)- When Will I Be Loved? (The Everly Brothers cover)