BLOBBY'S BLOG

Speak My Language

Last night we saw Laurie Anderson. Again.

I'm thinking that made the ninth time in the last two decades or so. The most oft artist I have seen. Some of her performances have been better than others - which is kind of stating the obvious, as they can't all be equal.

She's never truly had a hit anything, though one could call "O Superman" her most known work. And technically this was not a new show - I guess you'd call it a retrospective.

She did pieces from her last show Homecoming, which I wrote about last April. She did pieces from End of the Moon, Happiness, Moby Dick and Speed of Darkness. And then she just did a song or story here and there from Strange Angels or The Ugly One With All the Jewels. Only one snippet was new - not really specifically referencing Obama or Bush per se, but she morphed it into an older piece soon enough almost immediately.

Maybe because I've seen her so many times, I know what to expect. Or at least I expect what to expect. But the audience seems sooooo pretentious last night. The guy next to me did is barely above the breath, yet too much so over it, "wow" between and during pieces. Including pieces I don't think were wow-able.

Or the chick in the lobby who was looking at the merchandise for sale (something I had never seen before at an Anderson show). While viewing a t-shirt she said to her group, "this is a very unique shirt.................VERY unique!!!".

It wasn't. Not by a long shot.

But Laurie was. If I had a criticism (and you know I do!), it is that she didn't adapt her pieces at all from the other shows. About 8 years ago she went to work for McDonald's for two weeks - serving Big Macs and fries. But in the show, she goes, "last year, I got a job at McDonald's..." Would it have been that hard to update the time frame? Just a peeve of mine, I guess.

I knew the show was a going to be an amalgamation of shows, but I really wanted to hear more from Moby Dick, as it was her only show I had not seen. I was not rewarded with this.

Still - I'm sure at some point, I will be looking forward to performance #10.



Song by: Laurie Anderson