Trip to London and Paris. Got tickets for Marianne's November 19 gig at the Olympia. We'd never been in there and thought it might make an interesting evening. Also got tickets to Jackson Browne at Albert Hall but that's another story.

Unannounced opening act was a three-piece all woman band. Have no idea who they were but they were good. Baritone sax, minimal drum kit and electric guitar. They played a half hour and the first twenty minutes was filled with people looking for their seats. When everyone settled down, they ended their set and everyone who had just sat down ran back out to the bar.

Marianne moved onto the stage like a aging battleship approaching the dock. Hip replacement, four spots broken in her back. Walks with a cane and is no longer the lithe little songbird of the 1960s. Most the concert she spends sitting in a throne-like chair, waving her electronic ciggie, tea and tissues at her side.

She opened with Give My Love to London, then said "Here's a song you all know and--bugger me!--I know it, too" and launched into Broken English. Throughout the night, she was careful to reference the writers of the songs except for Sister Morphine and As Tears Go By. In fact, she didn't mention the Stones at all. Frequent F-bombs throughout.

The place was sold out and the audience was very much with her. At the end she left the stage very slowly, clearly enjoying the standing ovation.

It was a lot of fun. Kind of like spending the evening with your crazy old Aunt Marianne. In fact, I doubt it is much different talking one-on-one with her than it was listening to her occasionally rambling stories in the Olympia that night.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2014-12-09 00:13 by rowley.

Sounds very much like her London show the previous week, which was a great evening with an adoring and highly enthusiastic audience. The show had originally been supposed to start at 1930, then the venue sent round an e-mail the day before saying she'd be on at 2000 for one hour only. So we were very pleasantly surprised when we ended up getting two hours!

It was noticeable how after both As Tears Go By and Sister Morphine, she segued straight into the next song and so passed up on the chance for major appreciation. Quite out of character for her, as was her self-deprecating talk about her physical state. She got very emotional too at the final bow.

Review from a Dime user who taped the 'Dam show :

"It's my first time seeing Marianne Faithfull. I've left it late in the day, I
know, but I thought I ought to go to see her before one of us dies; and given
the trials and tribulations the woman has so far survived in her lifetime, she
might just outlast me.

Attempted suicide, heroin addiction, homelessness, anorexia nervosa, cocaine
abuse, loss of child custody, breast cancer, hepatitis C and now a broken
hip... it's a catalogue of misery and suffering that makes it frankly nothing
short of amazing that she's standing here in front of us tonight; and no-one
is more surprised than the artist herself.

Leaning on crutches, Marianne laboriously hobbles onto the stage and
immediately makes light of her situation.

Alternating between standing and sitting, Faithfull spends the better part of
the next two hours providing a window onto various phases of her long career,
stretching all the way back to 1964's 'As Tears Go By', the song that
catapulted her to fame more than half a century ago.

The years have taken their toll on Faithfull's voice, which is battered and
bruised, but not broken. It's a million miles from the voice that recorded 'As
Tears Go By' or even the one that brought us 'Broken English', but the
present-day rasp does lend the more plaintive songs a certain autobiographical
authenticity.

'Come And Stay With Me' completes "Sixties' corner" and heralds the start of
what Faithfull affectionately refers to as "Junkie's Corner". The bleak tale
of 'Sister Morphine' unfolds.

It's an interesting set-list, spanning the artist's entire career from first
singles to most recent album, released just a couple of months ago.

That latest album, 'Give My Love To London', features songs written with
several collaborators and is well-represented in tonight's show.

There's the title track, penned with Steve Earle; 'Falling Back', written with
Anna Calvi; Love More Or Less', written with Tom McRae; 'Late Victorian
Holocaust', penned with Nick Cave; and 'Sparrows Will Sing', ably assisted by
Roger Waters.

It's a good album, and 'Late Victorian Holocaust' in particular is a gem of a
song. One can easily imagine Cave himself performing a rendition of it in
years to come.

Marianne is chatty, too. She shushes the audience at one point when they
politely applaud the clearly considerable effort that it takes her to stand up
from her chair. "You don't get applause for standing up", she advises"