Melanie ~ 2005 September 17 ~ Narrows Center for the Arts, Fall River, MA
Set List
[Melanie begins the show by herself]: Maybe Not For a Lifetime (a cappella) - Together Alone - Someday I'll Be A Farmer - Good Book - Cerulean Blue - Buckle Down - Psychotherapy - Live Coal - [Melanie's son Beau joins her on guitar for the rest of the show]: Racing Heart - No Time To Smell the Flowers - Jamming Alone - Perceive It ... intermission ... [Beau by himself for the start of the second set]: an instrumental flamenco number - Darkest Day - [Melanie rejoins]: Some Say (I Got Devil) - Ordinary Rain - They Can Find You In Your Dreams - Smile - Brand New Key - Make It Work For Me - Crazy Love - To Be the One - What Have They Done To My Song - Photograph - Extraordinary
Review
Both Concert Going Partner and I listened to Melanie records in years gone by and when we saw she was coming to The Narrows, we thought we'd give her live show a try.
Melanie has been touring for the last number of years with her son Beau-Jarred Schekeryk, who is a highly accomplished flamenco guitarist. However, for reasons beyond their control, Beau was not able to get to the show on time. I was told by some Melanie fans there that she is not famous for starting shows on time, but she went on stage only a few minutes after the scheduled starting time.
She looked very stylish and beautiful. She was wearing a long-sleeved dress of many colors, the hem of which fell to the floor. She has kept her hair long, as it was in the Woodstock era, and it is dark brown with distinctive streaks of gray. At least one female fan had colored her hair to match Melanie's.
But she was quite flustered because of the absence of her son and accompanist. She began the show with an a cappella song, "Maybe Not For a Lifetime," and asked if there was anyone there who could tune her guitar. A guy named Mick came up from the audience and helped her tune. She continued by playing a few impromptu songs, mainly requests from a cluster of female Melanie devotees, who seemed delighted that she was diverging from her usual setlist. Her singing was lovely, and her playing was perfectly fine for folk music. In between songs she told a few stories, including one about the famed Isle of Wight Music Festival when she followed The Who and played as the sun was rising. She also talked about her hopes (not sure if this is serious) to stage a Melanie Fest with a full weekend of performances featuring different styles of music.
After about a half dozen songs, Beau arrived and the tone of the show changed dramatically. Where Melanie had been charming, and vulnerable, and sweet in a seasoned-folkie sort of way, suddenly we had a real pro of a musician on hand who was going to run a tight ship. He basically took over and started to play really high-end jazz flamenco, which to my hearing didn't really match his mother's style of songwriting. It was jarring after listening to Melanie's sweet folk songs.
As if the late arrival of Beau wasn't enough to create a casually chaotic atmosphere, the staff at the Narrows kept interrupting the perfomance. Once they needed to make an announcement about the fire exits; then they needed Melanie to place her order for food; then they needed Melanie to take an intermission so she could eat her food. It appears some of the usual folks who oversee the concerts weren't there that evening so some essential steps in putting on a concert slipped through the cracks. The series of interruptions, the fans who had travelled long distances to the show, and the late arrival of Beau and subsequent abrupt change in tone of the concert made the whole thing feel more like a disorganized family gathering than a concert.
Concert Going Partner and I left the show agreeing that we thought Melanie was great and we'd like to see her again sometime, especially if she was solo and playing her own folk songs. The show we saw tonight was largely a performance of Beau's flamenco guitar, and while he's very good at it, it's not something we were really interested in seeing.
