Cate Blanchett was amazing in ‘Gross und Klein’ on stage, so a friend and I said we’d see her next outing. Which was ‘The Maids’, with Isabelle Huppert and Elizabeth Debicki. She was HORRIBLE. Forced, hammy. We saw her again in ‘The Present’ hoping that was just a bad night and she wasn’t good in that either.
Bob Dylan and Lou Reed were both awful in similar ways. Bob just seemed to be fiddling with guitar tunings and grumbling a bit, the band played noisily and I feel like he only actually did his vocals on 30% of the setlist, the rest just letting the noise play. Lou Reed just smoked and laughed into the microphone while his band also did most of the leg work, but I think at least he was actively trolling us. I saw Cat Power and she was somewhere in between.
Fleetwood Mac and the Red Hot Chili Peppers were fine musically, but totally milquetoast and uncharismatic. No talking in between the songs, no stage presence. Just sleepwalking their way through their hits. PJ Harvey wasn’t just ‘playing the hits’ but she was still very boring.
I saw Morrissey once and can second that it was a really short set, he sounded vocally shot, and kept arguing and signalling with the sound people to turn something up or down. I think he cut the show short because he was in a foul mood that night, not caring that people had paid good money to see him.
Some artists who I was surprised I DIDN’T regret seeing live (because they have such erratic reputations) were Lauryn Hill, Grace Jones, and Courtney Love. Lauryn was on time and even though her hits were a bit sped-up, she sang them beautifully (and even rapped the Fugees bandmates’ verses). Nice inspiring words for the crowd too.
The Grace Jones show was theatrical and brilliant, the woman is a real 'performance artist' (when she wants to be, I guess). Courtney Love was hysterically funny, played a really long show with two encores (hits, rarities, album favourites, b-sides, covers), and super charismatic. She could probably do stand-up comedy. I was honestly expecting her to come out and croak a few songs and smoke in our faces so it was a pleasant surprise.
