natalie merchant

[ScaryDan]

my god last night was the best concert i have ever been to. natalie is the best. i'm sure dan will agree it was a top to the power of several million night.
i'm too excited to write more.
xoxo
dan

[luceluna]

wow. what else to say but wow?

i must confess that i'd never really heard natalie until last night - i went up to sydney for the concert principally to see dan and jason. i got there at about 5pm, and we hung around outside for a bit to see if we could say hi to natalie. we were the only people there - which was odd for me, after seeing the rabid throngs at the tori concert - and sure enough, at about 6, she just walked up to the stage door on her own. she signed our stuff (jase bought me an album for my birthday so i had something to get signed , but was really brisk and serious. after that we went CD shopping and got some dinner.

the concert itself kicked off at about 8.30 with an incredible supporting singer who was solo with his acoustic guitar. i've totally forgotten his name now....  

natalie came on at 9.30, and proceeded to play over two hours of the most incredible music i've ever heard. on stage she came alive in a deeply spiritual way - using the yinyang of opposing energies and producing a fluid and moving performance. the crowd was more enraptured than any audience i've ever been a part of.

one thing that really enhanced the evening was natalie's stage prescence. she was incredibly friendly, and even brought the house lights up at one point so people could find the spare seats near the front and fill them. for the encore, she got everyone on their feet (and a lot of them right up by the stage) to dance, and then she spent a good five minutes listening to everyone's requests for the final songs of the evening. the final song of the night was Gulf Of Araby, a cover that she dedicated to the Stolen Generation (the name used for the 100, 000 Indigenous Australian children who were abducted from their families and placed in "foster care" in an attempt at racial assimilation). the evening had been an emotional rollercoaster, but this track seemed to be some sort of catalyst for Natalie, and she burst into tears half way through the track - gut-wrenching sobs that choked the rest of her rendition. it was a shocking, poignant moment, and when she left stage, no-one could stop applauding. she finally re-emerged once more for what was the 6th song in her encore, Kind and Generous. it was a triumphant finale in what was as close to a perfect evening as an audience could hope for.

an interesting sidenote: i was by far the youngest person in the entire theatre (a gorgeous old-fashioned affair with beautiful decorative flair) - even with 16 years now behind me

[[e-mail]]

Sounds like I missed out then guys! Dan you will have to rip me some of of her work so that I can have a listen and be encaptured the way you guys were!

Rala