I have suffered shipwreck across your dark brown eyes

Well. I'm going to be horribly dissatisfied with my write-up of this concert, though I suppose that's not really the point (I don't really know what is, actually). But quite simply, it was the best concert I have ever been to. I'm still reeling from how amazing Rufus is.

I cannot fathom how I decided six months ago that Rufus was okay but just another talented musician whom I would never fully appreciate or love. Part of this stemmed from a lukewarm reaction to Release The Stars, but the album has really grown on me and now I think it may be my favourite. Allow me to quickly rave about Between My Legs: it is a musical orgasm, with how it builds from the first verse into the chorus, and then the higher octave in the second verse before the chorus and that incredible outro with the eerie speaking and Phantom Of The Opera shoutout... fucking brilliant.

On with the night. Hamer Hall is such a lovely venue - tainted by memories of high school speech nights (though I did sing solo on that same stage, so yay for me), but the acoustics are so lovely, especially for someone like Rufus who relies on such wonderfully extravagant arrangements, which need to sound clear and choral, not cacophonous (I will admit I did feel it did get a little muddy on the very odd occasion, but it would have been a thousand times worse in an arena or something). And so nice and grand! Sometimes you want gritty and standing in a crowd, and sometimes you want fabulous and refined. Rufus is definitely the latter.

The opening act was Leena, with whom I didn't take much issue, except that the whole acoustic singer-songwriter thing feels so overdone nowadays. At least she made some efforts to veer away from primary chord usage, which I did appreciate. And she was quite pretty and sweet, even if her thank-yous to the audience (after each song) were a little over-enthused. But overall, she was fine.

And then, Rufus.

Setlist:

Release The Stars
Going To A Town
Sanssouci
Rules and Regulations
Matinee Idol
The Art Teacher
Tiergarten
Leaving For Paris No. 2
Between My Legs

-- intermission --

The Consort
Do I Disappoint You?
A Foggy Day (In London Town)
If Love Were All
Beautiful Child
Not Ready To Love
Slideshow
Macushla
14th Street

-- costume change --

I Don't Know What It Is
Poses
Get Happy
Gay Messiah

-- the sad end --

It was definitely a Release The Stars-centred setlist, and I spoke to someone who said he was bored in the first half (the cheek!) because he hadn't got the CD. But I was pleased that Want One - which used to be my favourite - got a few numbers in there, and even if I would have died to hear Cigarettes and Chocolate Milk, the set we got was very, very strong.

Selected highlights:
Release The Stars - Just gah. Maybe it was virginal syndrome, but it possibly could have been the highlight of the night. Disco balls descended for the chorus and cast pretty lights on the audience, and the atmosphere was magical. And Rufus was playing neither the guitar nor the piano and being so expressive with his hands and face and I don't think he reached that same degree of expressiveness anywhere else in the concert. I still get chills when I listen to this song now.

Sanssouci - Beautiful flutework. Rufus said something about Australians being 'that sweet master race' alluded to in this song, because we were all so attractive and nice or something. His banter was so cute, I swear. "I'm just trying to sound smart." I think it was before this song that he also explained the flag on the stage, which was the American flag replaced with black and white stripes (all the horrible things about America) and brooches instead of stars (for all the beautiful things). How fabulous.

Between My Legs - Just because it is sex. There is a Youtube competition to choose someone to do the spoken part for each concert, and we got these two guys who were quite funny. But they didn't get any special treatment, which I was very surprised about - they didn't have backstage passes at the end of the night! so I'm not so bummed that I didn't manage to audition after all (though I'm far too self-conscious to thusly expose myself on Youtube anyway).
Do I Disappoint You? - An eerie extended electric guitar solo led into a gloriously grand rendition of this.

Foggy Day/If Love Were All - Wow. Rufus absolutely soared over the beautiful piano in these classics (okay, admittedly, I only know the former from Michael Bublé (shame) and the latter from Rufus' Judy Garland tribute, but I'm sure they are classics) and it was breathtaking. You have to love how he can switch from huge orchestration to small and simple and be so beautiful in both.

Not Ready To Love/Slideshow - Slideshow is one of the big reasons I didn't really love RTS (mainly because I don't understand the chorus), but I loved it in concert with the band and the melodrama of it all. Rufus started out this segued duo by getting the audience to pretend it was in a musical where we were the leading man and he was the leading lady (of course) and he was about to jump off a cliff ("and believe me, by the end of this number I will be jumping off that cliff") and we had to stop him by shouting out "I love you!" (which of course I meant wholeheartedly) to which replied with the opening line of Not Ready To Love. Fun. It was slowed down considerably, I felt, which made it all the more haunting (same went for Leaving For Paris No. 2, which Rufus told us was written for Moulin Rouge but got rejected, "and that's why that movie was a flop." I loved.).

Beautiful Child - I don't really have any specifics to say but I remember it being particularly awesome.

Macushla - Rufus sang this solo, sans microphone, with just the brass - very old school, I suppose. It was so pure and beautiful, and the clarity of Rufus' voice - swoon.

14th Street - I'm sure the Corrs live in Geneva were the inspiration for this arrangement. There was an extended outro where Rufus and then the different sections of the band left one by one after a little solo, until the banjo was left - it was really fun. And then Rufus came back out on stage in a bathrobe, and put on lipstick and earrings. Love.

Get Ready - I love Get Ready. Yes, I may have discovered it on American Idol when Diana DeGarmo sang it, but I am still entitled to love it. And Rufus did this hilarious routine in costume as Judy Garland, and his band became his dancers - it was such incredible campy fun and I NEED TO REVISIT THIS ON DVD. The crowd loved it (except maybe for the lady sitting next to Vikki).

Well, I guess this was a rather long review which still doesn't encapsulate how much I loved the concert. But at least I finally got it done. Please, please, if you love Rufus' music, you have to experience him live. Mindblowingly awesome.

photos here - not mine but oh well.

Michelle Branch is still alive

Above: Hard To Love You

It should be known that I love Michelle Branch. And hence, I am excited that she has updated her website to say that she has a new album out this Northern summer (which means it will probably get released in 2009, but let's stay positive now). And there are live performances from a set she did at Sundance available - nothing new, but well, this is what we've got at this stage.

All You Wanted available here

currently listening to

God, I'm totally neglecting this blog. So, a quick one:



I've never been hugely into Natasha Bedingfield - I find her a little abrasive, some might say - but this is by far my favourite song at the moment. I love the lilting beat, the background harmonies and the lyrics are cute without being cutesy. Not so sure about the Sean Kingston interlude and some of the altered-sounding vocals, but those are minor hiccups. This is pretty close to pop perfection.

Also listening to:

In Love With A Girl - Gavin DeGraw

The chord structure is very much I Don't Wanna Be part 2, and the lyrics are a little reminiscent of something Pat Monahan (Train) might deliver, but for all that, it works. The upcoming album is to be self-titled, according to Billboard. Not sure if that's a bleak sign.

my 2007 in music - part 2

I edited the last post slightly because I wasn't very happy with it. I'm still not. But oh well. Thanks to Chris for getting my ass into gear about writing this next post.

--

Biggest disappointment: Heroes and Thieves - Vanessa Carlton


(sorry, Charness)

The hype: songs test-driven at her Melbourne concert sounded promising, new and supportive label, positive reviews, addiction to first single Nolita Fairytale, and the trouble I went through to find this album: looked for it on the release date, found out shipments got delayed, when it was in store, it had to be retrieved from the back room, and I paid more than normal full price for it.

I will say straight off that this is not a horrible album - it was just horribly disappointing. I think Miss Carlton sums up her own album for me in the song Home - "they search for the colour they can never quite see / cause it's all white on white". And that is exactly what is wrong with this album - it is blandly pretty, with not enough musical complexity. For the most part, the melodies are based around your stock-standard chords and that is bo-ring. We even get two bridges that sound virtually identical - Nolita Fairytale bridge, meet your twin sister, This Time, which is in the same freaking KEY for crying out loud. And sometimes the melodies get echoed by three different instruments while they are being sung AS WELL - why why why? Plus, honestly: "I'm a sycophantic courtier with an elegant repost"? How Briony Tallis.

Anyway. This album will probably be reviewed in full, so I will reserve some of the scathing comments till then. As well as some of the positivity.

Runner-up: Greatest Hits - Spice Girls


The hype: The Spice Girls get back together. Need we say more.

The only Spice Girls album I own is the maligned Forever, which is a bit of a guilty pleasure of mine. Hence, I was excited to finally own on disc the classic songs of my high school years - Wannabe et al. And I thought I would be listening to this album non-stop for boppy nostalgic funness. But the truth is, it's managed 4 paltry plays in its entirety on my iPod. Why? Well, yes, I still love songs like Say You'll Be There and Spice Up Your Life, and discovered Too Much. But overall, I feel like it's just too patchy - Mama and Move Over are low points in the first half of the album, and then the singles from Forever feel very out of place, and the new songs are dross - and so I never really feel like listening to it. Maybe I should just learn to use the 'skip' button.

Dishonourable mentions:

Little Eve - Kate Miller-Heidke


She's amazing live, and I enjoyed her Circular Breathing EP, but somehow this, her major label debut, lacks oomph. The singles Words and Make It Last are quirky and fun, but the slow songs come off a little boring, and... I don't know. I may have to get back to you on this one.

Older stuff by Fountains of Wayne


Traffic and Weather, their 2007 release, made me think that they would be my new favourite band. First, I got their B-side collection, Out-Of-State Plates, and found it rather up-and-down. But okay, they're B-sides - maybe that's natural. Then I ordered Welcome Interstate Managers from 2003, which had the uber-fun Stacy's Mom, but also found that patchy. So, meh.

my 2007 in music - part 1

Well. Lord knows I don't need a new blog, but the idea came to me at work today (again, who knows why - I type enough at work without wanting to come home and do more of it) to have a new one which focuses on my gloriously unpopular taste in pop music. I plan on mainly doing album reviews (two have been churning in my brain for a while) more than anything - not under the impression that my opinion matters in the grand scheme of music criticism, but really just because I want to. And I seem to be buying/downloading (on iTunes, of course!) enough CDs to justify having a side blog about it. (Not necessarily a positive thing.)

The original idea for this opening post was to have my impressions on 2007 music, but I've realised that it takes too much commitment to cover all the categories I was going to write about. Instead, I'm going to go one by one and hopefully get to everything eventually - but who knows.

So, to begin:
Lived Up To The Hype: Hairspray soundtrack


The hype: a fun trailer with that catchy, catchy hook from You Can't Stop The Beat, pretty damn good reviews for the movie all round, It's A Musical (which is hype enough for me)
Cheating a bit, but what can I say? I really wanted to see the movie, and had the best time (twice) - the songs are so, so, so much fun, they're catchy and it's key change heaven. On a bad day, I perk up around track 9, Run And Tell That (there's so much talk about Nikki Blonsky and Zac Efron in the youngster roles but for me, Elijah Kelley deserves big props) but if I'm in a good mood, the Good Morning Baltimore opener already does it for me. I really hope Come So Far (Got So Far To Go) gets an Oscar, but it's probably unlikely. Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman, responsible for this joy ride, also did the songs for South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut, which explains the funtasticness there too.


Runner-up: Carnival Ride - Carrie Underwood

The hype: Delightful first album, which was one of the biggest sellers of 2006 (if not the biggest), strong sales for this album, a soaring first single (So Small) which I absolutely adore, good reviews from respected critics including one Matty-O

An excellent sophomore album from the American Idol alumnus. It's no grand departure from her solid debut, but it still feels fresh and the songs have nice hooks and choruses and everything else you need for good country pop (well, except for a key change, maybe). Of the tracks I had initial doubts about, only Twisted continues to fill like unnecessary filler - everything else has definitely grown on me. Highly recommended (unless you hate all things country, in which case, not).

Next time: Biggest Disappointments