In front of a nearly full auditorium, Australian classical guitar duo the Grigoryan Brothers took to the GRCH stage, seated simply in front of flamboyant purple drapes and swags.
Their repertoire was varied and exciting, clearly showing their expertise but without distracting from the music, and with just the right amount of clever chat between numbers they deserved the very enthusiastic applause at the end of their set.
A short break enabled the rest of the hall to fill and the excitement was palpable. At last the purple drapes parted to reveal our hero k.d. Lang standing centre stage in front of a seven piece band, arms extended as the opening bars of ‘Save Me’ filled the hall, and we were off on a musical journey through one of her finest albums on its 27th anniversary (or, as k.d. herself later quipped, the two year anniversary of the 25th anniversary).
‘Ingenue’ was performed from start to finish, sometimes remaining true to its original form, other times showing the effect of the performer’s 27 year musical evolution, such as ‘Season of Hollow Soul’ which, with only voice, piano and double bass had a jazzy feel and ended with a magnificent piano solo from Daniel Clarke.
In the first hit from the album – ‘Miss Chatelaine’ – Ms Lang hammed it up, dancing and trotting over the stage in a homage to the original video for the single, receiving a rapturous response from the crowd. In her trademark dark suit and barefoot, k.d lang was clearly relaxed, calmly responding to banter from the excitable crowd. The final song of ‘Ingenue’ – ‘Constant Craving’ – got everyone singing along and was rewarded with a richly deserved standing ovation.
Although clearly the star of the show, this was a band performance and Lang frequently took to the shadows to let her various band members shine. And this was an outstanding band, with most of them doubling up on different instruments and backing vocals and, later in the set, k.d. took time to chat on mic with each one individually as she introduced them to us.
But the show was far from over and, following ‘I Dream of Spring’, Lang introduced a trio of songs from three of her favourite singers – all fellow Canadians – and we were treated to beautiful versions of Joni Mitchell’s ‘Help Me’, Neil Young’s ‘Helpless’ and the show closer, Leonard Cohen’s ‘Hallelujah’ out of which Lang wrung every ounce of emotion and received another deserved standing ovation.
Her encore was preceded by a chat during which she warmly thanked everyone involved in the tour (including the crew and caterers) then suggested that we all – herself included – should strive to be better people and that the youth were the ones who were going to save us. Her final songs were ‘Sing It Loud’, followed by the sensual ‘Sleeping Alone’ which neatly rounded off one of the finest evening of music and performance that this reviewer has been lucky enough to experience.