Natalie Merchant played the CW Post Tilles Center Saturday night. She was accompanied most of the evening by a full orchestra, and performed with a barebones pianist and guitarist the final 30 min. or so.
Donating her profits to the Hurricane Sandy relief efforts was a wonderful gesture on her part. Not preparing a complete set list was not.
Some 75% of the show was dedicated to playing the obscure children's poems she had set to music in 2010 in Leave Your Sleep. Natalie had already performed these in this area on past tours. While it is still her most recent work, and she is somewhat invigorated by it by both having a book of illustrations ( not her own, mind you)of the poems released, and by playing them with an orchestra, clearly this audience had paid to see her explore her catalog more widely,
I dont know of a performer so easily distracted from the task,,,, she complained about late arrivals finding seats, the temperature of the theater, the "bleeping"( her words) of a cellphone ( for this she was in the right, of course), the horrific feedback that blared through an early second-set song ( causing her to restart the song, something she would do several times before the night was over), the flash of a camera ( causing her to screw up, again her words), and the "requests" that were yelled form the crowd, anxious as the evening grew late to hear the music they came for.
After a 75 minute first set, with "Verdi's Cries" being the rare recognizable Natalie Merchant song ( no one was there to hear e e cummings), natalie told the audience that they would return from the intermission sans orchestra ( the orchestra was awesome incidentally..... supposedly only 2 rehearsals and yet the subtle touch of these virtuoso's was beautiful to listen to). This proved untrue, as set two was a continuation of set 1 for about 25 minutes.
Finally we were left with acoustic Natalie...sure this was going to be fun. But she was totally unprepared..... taking turns with her guitarist in choosing the wrong key, not knowing what to play next with out a huddle, and finally choosing to play some of the most popular music ( such as the widely requested " Don't Talk" in some sort of shortened, what she called medley form ( though it wasn't even that, it was just a partial performance). Motherland was clearly the highlight moment of the night, but when expected to stretch out her vocal range on the evenings closing song, she complained mid song that she had sung some five hours that day between rehearsal and performance and wasn't sure if she could pull it off. WELL WHO'S FAULT IS THAT?????
All told, the audience walked out saying the show was good, could have been a lot better and I would agree