k.d. lang 12/10/2000

The recent K.d.lang gig had me thinking about the previous time I had seen her nearly 19 years ago. I was struggling to remember the gig at The Royal Concert Hall in Nottingham. Amazingly there is a recording on youtube that is really good quality so I now have a track listing and the opportunity to relive the experience! Looking at the songs (listed below) I can see why the gig is a bit of a blur. She sang most of the tracks of the album 'Invincible Summer' which I do not know. Listening to the youtube version the highlight has to be the cover of 'Crying' which perfectly suits her emotion-laden voice plus of course the tracks from 'Ingenue' which is a classic torch album. I knew I enjoyed the gig at the time - it's great to hear the reasons why again. 1. Extraordinary Thing 2. Summerfling 3. The Consequences of Falling 4. Suddenly 5. Crying 6. What Better Said 7. In Perfect Dreams 8. Wash me Clean 9. Love's Great Ocean 10. When We Collide 11. World of Love 12. Constant Craving 13. Miss Chatelaine 14. It's Happening With You 15. Simple

k.d. lang 17/7/2019

First up was a short very enjoyable set from classical guitarist Leonard Grigoryan. Good enough to snaffle a CD. k.d. lang was on shortly after and straight into a track by track performance of Ingenue, the 1992 album that made her a global star and gay icon. The band comprised of a superb pianist/hammond organ player, Daniel Clarke, an excellent musical bassist, David Piltch, a delightful rhythm guitarist who occasionally picked out some intricate solo notes, Grecco Burrato, and Rich Hinman on Pedal Steel and Lead Guitar, Andrew Borger on drums and backing vocalists, Moorea Masa and Tahirah Memory. Of course the singing was superb, the band was great particularly the three I mentioned favourably and the songs are pretty classic unrequited-love songs. I particularly like 'The mind of love', 'Wash me clean', 'still thrives this love', 'Outside myself' and naturally 'Constant Craving'. I noted however the the piano was especially inspired on 'Season of Hollow Soul' and 'Tears of love's Recall' and in truth the whole performance was great from start to finish. After that k.d. did a couple of tracks the second of which was a highlight called 'I dream of Spring' before hitting three 'canadian' covers , a Joni Mitchell track followed by an extraordinary version of 'Helpless', her emotion packed singing resonating perfectly with one of my all-time favourite songs. That was a moment. She followed it with 'Hallelujah' - a more overtly expressive version than Leonard Cohen's - to say the least. The encore was a couple of her tracks I didn't know and that was it - short and very very sweet.