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Dar Williams - Lock 17 (formerly Dingwalls), Camden - 23 September 2003
As the tickets said that the show would start at 7.30pm, and I am a big fan of Juliet Turner, who would be opening for Dar Willams, my friend and I raced to Camden to reach Lock 17 (formerly known as Dingwalls) in the Camden Lock warehouses, bemoaning the fact that we would have to skip dinner after a long day at work in order to be one of the first in to grab one of the few seats available. However, when we left the tat of the high street to step down into the delightfully rejuvenated lock area, we found that a queue had already formed and we figured we’d missed out on seats anyway (woefully for the sake of our tired, old-before-their-time backs). We peered through a window by the stairs down to the club and were able to see Juliet Turner doing her sound check. Then our stomachs ordered us back up the stairs, where we had veggie burgers in the airy pub above the club, which had incredibly friendly hippy-ish staff but no soap in the women’s loo (note that if you are ever tempted to visit the little girl’s room before eating your veggie burger, and you might want to walk away if you see that the chef on duty is a woman).
When we wandered back down into the gloom of the mid-sized club, all of the tables that are usually spread around the edge of the ‘mosh pit’ area in front of the stage had been replaced with chairs facing forward, all of which were filled, so we joined about 50 others in said mosh pit. Very little moshing was taking place, though. We were all in our mid-30s at least, and some were well in their 50s, and all of our tired selves just sat down on the floor as we waited for something fun to happen.
It’s just as well that we had settled down as we had a long wait. The first stirrings on the stage happened at 8.40pm, when the delightful Northern Irish Juliet Turner came on with a second acoustic guitarist, and they performed for half an hour. Juliet did seem to win over quite a few people, but she is prone to quite long introductions of each song, which isn’t always welcomed by a crowd unfamiliar with her. Fortunately, like Dar, she’s rather cute and has a terrific sense of humour, which always helps, and her material is grand, although on this night she played mostly new songs rather than her trusty old favourites. The beautiful Belfast Central did feature near the end, though. Juliet apparently also thought the club was a bit gloomy and asked for a bit of light on the stage, and it was interesting to see that a busy lighting director tried to spice up her introspective ballads with swirling colours and patterns. Although there were mutterings around the corners of the room from the people in the bar, the people down front were quite attentive and Juliet seemed pleased with the reaction she got. (I’ll be reviewing her performance in more detail on the site in due course….)
When Juliet left the stage, we sat back down on the floor again and hoped that Dar would come on right away, as it was approaching 9.30pm and much of the public transport in London shuts down before midnight. We thought perhaps Dar would come on at 9.30pm and play ‘til 11pm, at which time we’d need to run to catch the tube to catch the last train to catch the bus to walk home by 1am.
No such luck. When a young singer songwriter and her guitar came on stage, it was not Dar, but a local lass called Eva Abraham. Eva was new to me and she looked rather like Hermione Norris (Karen from Cold Feet) but with long dark hair and a look that betrayed her half-Hungarian parentage. Her voice was strong, sweet yet powerful, and wavered between the sultry sounds of Portishead and the bounding heights of Marcella Detroit of Shakespear’s Sister. Her faultless voice, however, delivered fairly sterile songs; they seemed pretty enough, but they were almost too pristine and perfectly constructed, and the quality of singer-songwriters I am used to has turned me into such a lyric snob that I cannot be drawn into songs that are less than pure poetry. Her recent debut album may be worth exploring, but in this setting, I felt that she really should have come on first before the better known Juliet Turner, and then Dar—and all three much earlier. Sadly, everyone was so impatient and perhaps feeling slightly cheated by the time that Eva took the stage that everyone just carried on talking as though she weren’t there, and I really felt awful for her. Her voice was strong enough to boom out over the crowd, but her confidence must have crashed, though it didn’t show, and I almost expected her to cut her set short because so few people were paying attention, which she really didn’t deserve. One older man up front was about the only one standing in the ‘mosh pit’ during her set, and he couldn’t take his eyes off her. However, we suspected that was because she was wearing one of those old 80s-type dresses with a plunging neckline almost cut down to the navel, so he got to see lots of flesh and no doubt wanted to catch the event if some of that bit of material slipped.
After clearly talented Eva performed a remarkably pretty version of Joni Mitchell’s Blue and then left the stage, time was getting on and we were getting a bit fed up. My friend and I realised that we would not get to see much of Dar as we’d have to go at 11pm unless we wanted to sleep on a bench in Camden, which really didn’t look too appealing. We watched what seemed to be the most unusual roadie ever help the musicians set up the stage—a Dar-like, flame-haired woman wearing a frumpy perhaps maternity smock/dress that seemed to be brown with huge orange flowers. We expected Dar herself to be dressed in a vaguely similar manner as we had heard she was pregnant—which goes to show how silly April Fool’s ‘jokes’ can spread eternally on the grapevine—and worried about the many smokers, as a recent study said that spending an evening in an (inevitably smoky) pub is like smoking a cigarette yourself, via passive smoking.
However, when Dar finally took the stage at 10pm, she was slim and tiny as ever, wearing a lovely black sleeveless dress and a sophisticated hairstyle swept over to one side and secured with a diamante barrette, which matched the dangling diamante earrings that she might have borrowed from Juliet Turner. Her smiles and bubbly personality fill a room the second she appears in it, and she feels warmly like everybody’s best friend at university. To the sound of sudden major feedback from the bass guitar, Dar arrived with three men in black whose appearances just shouted ‘New Yorker!’
Guitarist and backing vocalist Ben Butler looked like Robert De Niro and Ray Davies’ love child, fortunately having inherited mostly De Niro’s looks and Davies’ musical talent. He has played with some other marvellous women: Jane Siberry, Dar’s Cry Cry Cry collaborator Lucy Kaplansky and even Paula Abdul, and seemed adept at ad-libbing solos on the electric guitar.
Bassist Mike Visceglia looked like he just stepped out of the Sopranos, which is perhaps an appropriate image as he apparently received death threats before once joining Suzanne Vega, with whom he has played for ages, on stage at Glastonbury, causing her to perform wearing a bullet-proof vest! His easy yet imposing style of playing gave me the impression that he came from a jazz background, and he absolutely oozed cool. This smoothie has worked with Joe Jackson, John Cale, Vega’s hub producer Mitchell Froom, Curtis Stigers and Phil Collins. He even, like Dar, played the Lilith Fair (accompanying Vega). Although he certainly wasn’t as large, his appealing face reminded me of comedian Brad Garrett, who is probably best known as the cop brother in Everybody Loves Raymond, though in his younger days, Visceglia looked a bit like Nick Cave.
Finally, the drummer was Steve Holley, who had a powerful voice that should have been better heard, but the sound mixer kept his mike fairly quiet—I suppose it’s tricky to mike singing drummers, but I’ve certainly seen it successfully done at Paul McCartney and Brian Kennedy gigs. He reminded me of a larger Peter Lorre with a curly wig. Holley, who also appeared on Dar’s latest album, has a remarkable past as a member of Wings—and bandmate Denny Laine joined Holley on his intriguingly titled solo album ‘The Reluctant Dog’—and after getting his first touring job at the age of 16, has worked with Elton John, Kiki Dee, Julian Lennon, Joe Cocker, Ian Hunter and Chuck Berry.
I had never seen Dar perform with a band, but I have seen other of my favourite usually solo singer-songwriters--such as Ron Sexsmith, Eddi Reader, and Boo Hewerdine—step out once or twice with bands, and the experience was grand and not nearly as jarring as expected. I would have to say that Dar’s band was more of an imposing electric power than I had anticipated, particularly in such a small space, and it almost completely changed her sound, but was interesting to hear. Who would have expected to see a tremolo arm used at a Dar concert? This new combo certainly influenced Dar’s set-list, as she declined to play some of her quieter favourites such as Iowa when requested, as she understandably wanted to focus on songs that were more suitable with a band. She also concentrated mostly on her latest album, The Beauty of the Rain, which is what artists normally do when touring to promote a new album, whether their fans like it or not. Fortunately, I think most of us found it to be rather refreshing to hear her live interpretation of these new songs rather than having her simply peddle the same old cutesy songs such as The Babysitter’s Here and When I Was A Boy, and the peaceful February and The Ocean. Still, I would be sorry if our many favourites disappeared from her setlists in future, but I don’t believe there is any danger of that; she’s just adding the newest classics to her repertoire.
Dar began this evening with a lively Fishing in the Morning, with everyone on stage apparently following some directive to perform with their eyes clamped shut. It was grand to see other players intensively enjoying Dar’s music as much as the audience, and ‘Ray De Niro’ and Steve Holley provided soft backing vocals. I preferred this song live, as even though Bela Fleck’s banjo on the album version was thankfully subtle, that and the slide guitar did replace the soul of the song with a bit too much of a bluegrass feel. At Lock 17, Dar’s live voice initially struggled to be heard over the additional musicians, but it soon took centre stage and was as warm, perfect and familiar as ever. The delightful version of the newish song drew huge cheers from the audience when they finished playing.
Continuing the evening’s tradition of extensive chatting between songs, Dar told us it was a thrill to be back in London, this time with friends. ‘It’s been me against you for long enough,’ she quipped, before claiming to be nervous because drummer Holley’s mother was in the house, and she was a ‘professional singer’, as though Dar, who forgot to notice that she, too, was a professional singer, was actually worried about being unfavourably judged. She then explained that the song they’d just performed was based on a dream about a friend of hers (Cliff Eberhardt), and she said one of her best friends in the world was in the club that night (perhaps that flower dress woman?). It seems she always travels with wonderful friends, which is terrific, and what you would really expect of such a lovely person as Dar seems to be.
She then moved on to her tale about SoHo in New York and how it became trendy to shop at the Bohemian boutiques, which she had to admit to loving herself, which meant that Dar herself had ‘become a strategically marketed concept,’ she joked, which made her fear for her soul. She described how she found herself wandering the shops of SoHo with such bleached blonde hair that she began to wonder what else she would bleach—and after some titters in the filthy-minded folk in the audience, she explained that she meant that she worried that she would bleach ‘inside’ next. The band cranked up the by now expected Spring Street with its brilliant chorus beginning with the higher part of ‘And I can’t believe what they’re saying’, which Dar’s voice reached perfectly, surrounded by the warm tones of the voices of her drummer and guitarist. Ben provided a shock of an electric guitar solo that almost overwhelmed the song, but his talent was impressive and Dar clearly loved his input.
Without stopping for a chat this time, Dar led us into the next song, her acoustic guitar the only sound joining her truly beautiful voice until the band kicked in at the second verse of Farewell to the Old Me. The charming lyrics of this song fit wonderfully into its catchy construction, but again, the song was so much more impressive live. On the album, it is marvellous, but it seemed to me to lean towards being a bit too gooey, perhaps because the multi-layered vocals on the chorus lent itself too well to being a soundtrack song, which it apparently was (and during a sex scene!). The live performance was more straightforward, which drew out the fantastic words and the raw warmth of the song, and naturally was greeted with a great deal of appreciation at the end.
Returning to storytelling mode, Dar explained that, in the States, people got ‘deep, deep into the upholstery of their couches when they were depressed’. Those depressed people would clutch the remote control to their 200 channels and think that that was the world. She said she thought she could turn one of her songs into a dance hit, perhaps in somewhere like Norway, since she had actually seen the world. She apologised for omitting the UK from her descriptions in this song, explaining that that was ‘before there was the man in the glass box.’ The American in me decided not to let the Londoner in me get insulted by the good-humoured implication that magician and ‘endurance artist’ David Blaine’s latest (and least popular, judging by the many verbal and other attacks on him) stunt--to remain in a clear box suspended high above a bank of the Thames near Tower Bridge for 44 days without food--was the only thing that would merit a mention for the UK. As we laughed, Ben’s electric guitar introduced Dar’s first collaborative effort, Closer to Me. Again, I preferred this stripped-down, banjo-less version to that on the album. Drummer Holley provided particularly strong backing vocals again, which worked better than the multi-tracking on the album, during what I always thought of as ‘the Billy Joel part,’ as it reminds me of the punchy list in We Didn’t Start the Fire. From now on, though, it will be known to me as ‘the UK-less part, before the man in the box.’ The Soprano bassist was really jamming on this tune, and Dar was clearly enjoying herself, even turning to watch Ben play his guitar quite jazzily at the end of the track.
Next came silence for a bit, and then a bit of quiet tuning before Dar’s acoustic guitar trickled into one of the most gorgeous songs on the new album, The Beauty of the Rain, which is pure Dar grandeur. I’m afraid I now couldn’t help but think of David Blaine when Dar sang of ‘a box of stained glass tears’. During most of the evening, Dar seemed to stare emptily ahead whilst singing, apparently determined to fix her stare on a spot on the far back wall. I suppose she was just being possessed by the beauty of her songs, and she rewarded us with charming best-friend smiles in between every number. This song’s gentleness gripped the atmosphere, until I became quite distracted by the bright flashing red light on the phone in the back pocket of the person in front of me (perhaps a new way of recording lovely shows), and then someone else whose phone was on ‘silent’ disrupted proceedings just before the song finished, as the signal disturbed the audio equipment with Morse code like sounds being amplified over the lovely music. Thankfully, nothing could ruin such angelic beauty, and we all cheered madly at the end of the song.
Dar began to explain that she was about to do another pensive song, which she had to include because the reference to the Autumn men made her think of our mate David. This is where someone interrupted her with a request to play one of her older, quieter tunes, and she said that she couldn’t do that one tonight. She paused and gave what she wanted to say some thought, then half-reluctantly said, ‘I’m not fishing, but is anybody here disappointed that I’m not solo tonight?’ Everyone kindly shouted, ‘No!’ Dar seemed half-relieved and said that that was great, and that we should take advantage of our chance to ‘totally rock out tonight’ as she didn’t know when she would be coming back with a band again.
So with that big question out of the way, and surprisingly after discussing rocking out, Dar moved into her quietest songs all evening, The End of the Summer, during which the bassist and drummer took a break. I will no doubt encourage a lynch mob to start heading my way, but I must confess to being the only person on earth, from what I can tell, who doesn’t faint when I hear this song. In fact, I grow impatient. It seems too long to listen to something so unstructured without any significant hooks—and it pains me to speak in these terms because I don’t normally require such instant pop-like gratification. Reading the lyrics of this song is captivating; they perfectly capture a mood, event and season, and they encapsulate poetic storytelling that most songwriters would kill themselves to create. I love the words, the atmosphere created impresses me, but somehow I always find myself getting restless and feeling like it’s a long time to stand and listen to a sleepy tune that doesn’t move me. I know, I know, I am a detestable philistine, and I’m normally a lyric person more than a tune person, so it makes no sense. But for some reason I grow impatient while I am certain that everyone else must be moved to tears. I feel I should at least get credit for having the courage to admit my character flaws! Okay, now send in the lynch mob, but give me a five-minute start. During that five minutes, I will dare to add that I have a serious phobia of slide guitars, I absolutely cannot bear the icky country whiney twang of them, and much to my horror, Ben added some slide guitar to this song. I agree it helps create an atmosphere, but, well, blech. I have to say that Ben made some truly impressive whale sounds and I did admire his talent, but really wished he was playing the trumpet or something instead. Please don’t think I saw this song as torment; no one could ever do less than love hearing that fantastic, distinguished voice sing out her heavenly lyrics. But it would be boring if I gushed constantly, wouldn’t it?
After my non-ordeal, and as the drummer and bassist returned and Ben changed guitars, Dar introduced a song about schooldays and the idea of being in the back of a limo on prom night. That, she said, reminded her that she was, for technical wonder, supposed to kiss the microphone like it was a date but she couldn’t, perhaps because the ‘date’ was a bit tall for her (or perhaps she had a sense of hygiene and feared that Oasis had used/consumed the mike before her). She spoke of how much the college radio stations had meant to her and her ‘tiny teenage mind’, with all their radical conspiracy theories….which, she casually quipped, turned out to be true. Upon recognising the lead-in to Are You Out There, one of the finest songs from the End of the Summer album, the audience cheered and got busy providing hand-claps as additional percussion. The whole band seemed more bouncy, and Dar was absolutely beaming throughout the song.
I suppose all of us music-lovers can relate to being awake in the wee hours with our only company being a DJ somewhere. Dar’s lyrics here remind me of the fantastic Roddy Frame’s later stunning song Surf and its lyrics ‘When I was young, the radio played just for me—It saved me’ about much the same feeling. Everyone partied a bit during this terrific rendition of Are You Out There, even the band. Afterwards, Dar muttered something to ‘Ray de Niro’ and laughed, then informed us, in case we hadn’t noticed, ‘That was a rock out!’ And so it was.
Dar drank some water as some people called out requests (I heard ‘Alleluia’), then she suddenly turned behind her to her drummer and asked with concern, ‘Are you falling off the stage?’ The stage was seriously small, with space only for the four musicians and their equipment and no room for manoeuvre, which would explain why they had to bounce like Tigger if they wanted to dance at all—the only way was up. Fortunately, the drummer was okay, I think he just dared to blink too enthusiastically and perhaps lost his balance in the limited space. Dar asked us to guess what she was about to play, but then seemed to say ‘Did you say, If I Wrote You?’ without a pause, presumably to Mystic Meg or John Edward or whatever fast-talking psychic was in the crowd.
So it was If I Wrote You, another gem from End of the Summer, that Dar—initially on her own with her acoustic guitar--and the band treated us to next. This song never fails to be outstanding, particularly with that brilliant voice strutting coolly through the lovely lyrics. Many people in the audience sang along, but they had a talent for harmony that did not detract from the performance (which tells you that I was not one of the singers). Visceglia became The Beaming Bassist, smiling smoothly and slinking over his bass, as drummer Holley again provided backing vocals that hinted at being impressively strong if only the volume were louder.
After that lovely number, Dar said that they were touring to plug her new album, which unfortunately wasn’t available that night. The two support acts had invited us to buy their albums and come for a chat, but here Dar just invited us to come chat afterwards, as she apparently had nothing to sell. I’m sure she had many takers but, sadly, I wouldn’t know….
Dar went on to explain that she had written the next song for her friends who had children. She had the audience in giggles as she reeled off the typical plans of a 20-year-old, ie ‘by the time I’m 28, I’ll be married, and in my 30s, I’ll have two to three kids, and we’ll have a house, not in the suburbs but safe yet progressive and cool.’ She explained how things never went to plan—but went better. Dar said she knew so many parents who had tried so hard to have children, that by the time their bundles of joy came along, the parents were in their late 30s, with a very relaxed philosophy of life and no interest in being controlling. ‘I’m just here to facilitate,’ Dar said, imitating these progressive parents’ explanations of their parenting role to their kids. She lovingly referred to a friend who said that her kids wanted nothing but long tails, they loved to walk around with tails as though they were animals, so she spent all her time sewing tails of varying types into their clothing. After that amazing introduction, Dar advised that she had written The One Who Knows for those parents who had found that the priority was just to keep magic in the world.
With an introduction as poetic and touching as the exquisitely sublime song itself, Dar carried us through its beauty on her dazzling voice, her delicate acoustic guitar picking, and Mike’s gentle tweaking of his bass. The drummer had disappeared at some point, I hope not by falling off the back of the tiny stage. Ben’s appropriately subtle electric guitar joined in later, and I found myself feeling more in tune with this song now, as though I had been sensibly taught the greatest wisdom possible in raising children when/if that day comes. I must add that it surprised me to read Dar’s point in the album’s liner notes that she sees this delicacy as a country song, when that would never have occurred to me, despite Alison Krauss being the lovely harmoniser. There are, however, other tunes on the album that veer in that direction with, as I said, their banjo and slide guitar.
Without even much of a pause, the band began ‘rocking out’ to the fantastically catchy I Saw a Bird Fly Away. Drummer Holley had found his way back onto the stage, and he and Ben belted out wonderful vocals that again were a bit too faintly amplified, but then it took a few songs for the sound guy to think to turn up Dar’s vocals, too. We were all doing a bit of subtle we’re-no-longer-youngsters bouncing as enthusiastically as maturity would allow, when I realised with horror that it was already almost 11pm, which was really the latest we could stay if we wanted to get home and feed/medicate the creatures that lived there, never mind sleep in a bed rather than on the filthy pavement near the crazies hanging around the area. It was a tough choice, and we compromised by adding a bit more excitement and risk to our dilemma by staying for one more song, but that was all we could manage.
Since I have no memory in my old age, I jot down set lists at concerts now, and at this stage, I shoved the pen I’d been using back into my handbag in preparation for a sudden departure. Unfortunately, in doing so, I accidentally pulled the chord (oops, Freudian slip; I mean 'cord', of course) on my personal alarm, which promptly went off in the middle of a Dar song. I can only be thankful for three sensationally lucky things: (a) that I had accidentally set the alarm off twice when fishing for my keys at my front door recently (thankfully not at 1am, which would be the time I’d return home this night), so its batteries were clearly going and it was no longer as loud as a foghorn; (b) when I wrapped the leather of my handbag, as well as my own body and my kind friend’s coat very tightly around the alarm as I tried to manoeuvre blindly in a fumble for the cord and replace it in its hole in the alarm, then the alarm was muffled a bit, and (c) and this was the best and most important element: the band was rocking out at the time. Can you imagine the scene if this incident had occurred during the previous song or The End of the Summer? I shudder to think. As it was, I rather contributed to the music, and I didn’t even demand minimum wage.
Not long after I managed to silence my alarm, and wished I could slow my rapid heartbeat after the panic that had ensued, the tremendous applause for the previous song died out and silence descended upon the club. Dar began speaking about how her husband had grown up listening to boy folk rockers, whilst she had grown up listening to girl folk rockers, and they met half way at Fairport Convention. When she began to speak of Robbie Robertson and the late Richard Manuel of the Band, who wrote the only unoriginal song on her latest album, we knew she would be performing her version of Whispering Pines, which she seems to see as a sort of compromise for her husband, and a tribute to him at the same time. It is perhaps ironic that the husband and wife have chosen a song to bridge the musical gaps between them, in their love, that is all about desperate loneliness, desolation and loss. Robertson’s picturesque lyrics are splendid and Manuel’s tune is hauntingly beautiful—and I thought it lovely to learn that he had written it on a piano with one key completely out of tune, so he re-tuned the piano in the studio to play it just the same way when the Band recorded it. Dar’s willowy vocals fit the aching of the song perfectly, and Holley finally got his chance to shine as the vocalist his mother’s no doubt proud of when he took over the Cliff Eberhardt (he of the fishing song) part in the call-and-repeat section beginning with ‘Standing by the well, wishing for the rains….’
The performance was marvellous and I could add my own heartbreak to the sorrow of the song as I had to rush towards the exit then, whilst everyone else was busy in their silence trying to come to terms with the paragon just presented to them.
So I am afraid that’s as much as I can tell you about Dar’s marvellous performance. I could, in respecting her understandable desire to stick mainly with her new album, bemoan the absence of Your Fire Your Soul, which falls firmly into the fun, rock-out category, as well as the delightful Mercy of the Fallen and the stunning I Have Lost My Dreams. I could say I wished she’d at least have played As Cool As I am. But I don’t know that she didn’t, nor was it noticeably missing at the time. I did hear that she did not play for much longer, that her set (which apparently included The Green World’s After All) was only about an hour long, which is a bit of a disappointment, particularly considering how long we waited to see her.
When I was younger, before I lived in the suburbia of the Home Counties, when my life didn’t depend on trains that shut down far too early, and when I thought I was invincible, as you do when you’re young, and didn’t mind taking risks in terms of walking alone in cities in the middle of the night, I am sure I would not hesitate to attend a concert that began at 10pm. Now, if such a thing were advertised, it would seem unfeasible and hold much less appeal. Most of the concerts I attend now end about the time Dar was taking the stage, and I can relax and enjoy the concert without the terror and panic of literally running shamelessly through tube stations, up deep escalators, down crowded roads to train stations in order to join the scary drunks and freakier people on the very last train home. Whilst I don’t expect any concerts to begin at exactly the time on the ticket, I never guessed that ‘7.30pm’ meant a 10pm start. Thank goodness we decided we had time to eat first after all, and thank goodness Juliet Turner entertained us, though I do think she should have been second on the bill, as she was a bit stronger and certainly more seasoned than poor Eva Abraham, who didn’t stand a chance against an impatiently irritated Dar-hungry crowd.
But please don’t mistake my old fogey whinging for disappointment about the concert itself. Rest assured I walked away a happy person, thrilled to have enjoyed bubbly, winsome Dar’s amazing talents and joyful presence. And this time, I even got to see her, or at least the top third of her face and her right shoulder—the rest was covered by an audience member’s ginormous head that never moved. But we were all happy fans having fun, so that was okay.
So, the concert was a joy, even with this unusual setlist, which in fact was a bit refreshing although, as I said, I would hate for the old favourites to be banished forever, but certainly I would continue to welcome these new songs. And although Dar on her own with a guitar is all anyone ever needs, the band accompaniment worked. The magic of Dar exudes from her whether she is surrounded by other musicians or not; nothing can drown it out or push it away. This fine Sopranos gang (or should I say family) accentuated her greatness and complimented her music; they had been chosen well, for their apparent personalities and stage presence as well as their amazing talents. Despite my forced early departure cutting into it, much to my regret, it was a magnificent, memorable night.
Copyright © 2003 by TC. All rights reserved.
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