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Friday, December 07, 2007
 So! The concert!
 Christina Courtin opened, and I was actually a little disappointed. In the time since I saw her perform last July, I'd built her up in my head as a paragon of soul-nourishing cuteness until she became my mental musical equivalent of Pushing Daisies. But tonight, she chose a much more aggressive set list, and as she skipped around, singing with her whole body, rather than being cute she just came across as spastic. Toward the end, she sang "Foreign County," which helped, but the cuteness train had already jumped the tracks. It was unfortunate, as I adore her voice and I always support musicians experimenting and moving in different directions, but... no. Not so much. Hopefully her upcoming CD will have more cuteness, like her cover of the Beatles' "Honey Pie," which caused puppies and kittens to spontaneously manifest into being all over the Union Hall stage. Oh well. If you were a foreign country, I'd still visit you, Christina!  (Good LORD I love my iPhone! It takes such pretty, pretty pictures!) By the time Vienna Teng came onstage, I'd drifted up to the front of the room (it was a "standing room only"-type affair, so I was standing against the stage. As my luck would have it, they ended up maneuvering her piano so that she was sitting smack-dab in front of me! I could have reached out and poked her with a short stick, had I a mind to. Not quite a ruler, perhaps, but a yardstick would have been more than adequate.  She did a very long, very varied show, which included a cover of Radiohead's "Idioteque." I've never known her to do covers, so that was a fun surprise! She performed a lot of my favourite songs, including "Blue Caravan," "Pontchartrain," "Gravity," "Unwritten Letter #1," "Homecoming," and "City Hall," the last of which received RIOTOUS cheers. It's clearly a song that means a great deal to a lot of people, and for good reason.  Her band remained--as always--excellent, especially her percussionist (Andrew Chen, IIRC?). See him rock in her encore performance of "Hope on Fire," on YouTube already! God bless the internet. And DUDE, you see that head obscuring the shiny speaker in front of her? THAT'S MY HEAD! I have a sweet and photogenic head, yo. And hmm, I realized in the process of writing this that I should probably blog about seeing Tim Burton speak at the Lincoln Center at some point, as it was quite awesome. Basically, what you should know is:
Labels: christina courtin, tim burton, vienna teng Priscilla said at 3:36 PM
Thursday, July 19, 2007
Last night I went to see Vienna Teng and Christina Courtin in concert. Too awesome! Vienna Teng is quite possibly my favourite artist at the moment, and I was positively gleeful last week to see her name on Union Hall's website when I was browsing for info on the Jonathan Coulton concert. Union Hall is a small, intimate venue in Brooklyn, and its casual and slightly offbeat atmosphere would make it just the kind of hangout I'd frequent if I lived closer. I'm so happy to have discovered it!
Vienna was wonderful and charismatic in person, and to my delight, she played just about all of my favourite songs. I was sitting a little too close to the speakers for comfort and as a result had to listen with a finger on one ear, but I guess that's what happens when you get out of work at 7, the doors open at 7:30, and it takes about 45 minutes to get there. I still had a fantastic time! She opened with "Blue Caravan," a song that has particular significance to me as my roommate choreographed to it last spring. And at the request of me and another random guy in the back, she played my favourite song of hers, "The Tower," performing it solo for the first time. Fabulous! I was particularly impressed with Vienna's percussionist, who was totally hardcore. It was so awesome to see how many bizarre instruments he played and added to the mix. Said instruments included a glockenspiel, a tambourine that he STOMPED on, an ordinary plastic box (which he also sat on), and a weird sci-fi looking thing I've never encountered before that resembled a metal sphere with spikes, played with a bow. After Vienna Teng finished, I spontaneously decided to stay for the other act, even though it was getting late. I'm so glad I did! I'd never heard of Christina Courtin before, but I totally fell in love with her. She seemed so HAPPY when she sang! She performed barefoot, and she gave the impression that she was singing with her whole body, dancing around totally without pretense or self-consciousness. My favourite part was when she sang a cover of The Beatles' "Honey Pie." She was so freaking adorable! I am totally gay for her. XD Here she is on YouTube, singing one of the songs she also sang last night. Three cheers for living in New York! Labels: christina courtin, music, vienna teng Priscilla said at 3:03 PM Title cartoon by Bruce Eric Kaplan, used without permission.
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