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NY Times review of "Heart & Soul" Tour w Rod Stewart
Awhile ago I saved a bunch of articles from the NY Times archives that I post here on occasion when the board is sort of slow. Hopefully you guys like reading these things too. I like to see in retrospect if I agree with them, and in this article I have to agree: the Stevie/ Rod duets on this tour were pretty unexciting! Ricoh V.
MUSIC REVIEW; Two Rock-Radioers With Their Differences Intact By BEN RATLIFF Published: April 9, 2011 • The ''Heart & Soul'' tour, a pairing of Rod Stewart and Stevie Nicks, is pure nostalgia, a valentine for the middle-aged and what they listened to from 1976 to 1978. Not a judgment, just a fact. But the really outmoded part about the concert is that the link between them is the radio. Remember the radio? We submitted to it completely. It made the connections for us. Besides Los Angeles, teased blond hair and a tremendous talent for the exaggerated courtly stage bow, what Mr. Stewart and Ms. Nicks really have in common is that they are singer-songwriters, articulating consciousness through words and melody, and they are fundamentally different at that job. Ms. Nicks, 62, who performed first at Madison Square Garden on Wednesday night, is the goddess of indirection. ''Do you know what this is?'' she sang in ''Love Is.'' ''No I don't/but whatever it is/it's very powerful.'' This could be her organizing principle. The referents of her lyrics flicker in and out; she suddenly omits the subject of a sentence, asks a rhetorical question or moves from first to third person without warning. Most pop songwriters don't do this anymore. But Ms. Nicks is a woman who can put on a black shawl, raise her arms and spin, and the audience roars. Whatever that is, it's very powerful. Wednesday's set was a tight group of greatest hits, so there was ''Edge of Seventeen'': ''Just like the white winged dove/sings a song, sounds like she's singing.'' And ''Sorcerer'': ''All around black ink darkness/and who found the lady from the mountains?'' Who or what is like the dove? Who did find the lady? Essentially it's you: the listener and her own experiences fill the gap between what is to be understood and what is not. Ms. Nicks's voice narrowed a long time ago, forcing her to write melodic detours away from the upper register, but her sound and phrasing remain the same. She drones and under-enunciates, the better to be misunderstood, and with several band members who have been a constant for decades -- the guitarist Waddy Wachtel and the percussionist Lenny Castro -- she fitted the songs to the audience's memory. People forget that Mr. Stewart, now 66, is a songwriter: he's been privileging people's material for so long and so effectively -- not just the last decade of his ''Great American Songbook'' albums, but also his previous covers of the Rolling Stones, Van Morrison, Tim Hardin, Tom Waits, Bob Dylan and others. Let's treat it all as one project. He seems to. As opposed to Ms. Nicks, there's usually a straight-forward narrative in Mr. Stewart's songs and the ones he chooses to cover; there's also very little wondering or regret. As for love, he hungers, consumes, dispatches. Sometimes he fails: oh, well. (He's good at cheery leave-takings: ''Maggie Mae,'' ''Forever Young.'') He sees no crystal visions. Mr. Stewart's voice is pretty damaged, too, sometimes dropping beneath the line of audibility as his longer set wore on, swerving away from high notes and turning to a wheeze. But of course he's had a rough voice forever, and the whole point of Rod Stewart is finessing a light engagement with one's own material. In a succession of bright raw-silk jackets, he swiveled and high-stepped just enough to convey that he was having an all-right time, while his band and production provided the rest: a rugged rhythm section, tall female soloists in red dresses (on trumpet, tenor saxophone and fiddle), and a stage like an enormous mid-'60s television show set, clean and beautifully lit. The stars performed two songs together, unexcitingly, during Mr. Stewart's set -- his ''Young Turks,'' her ''Leather and Lace.'' But whereas Ms. Nicks remained her own entity, Mr. Stewart traced his enthusiasms to and connections for what came before and around him. He sang songs by Sam Cooke and Chuck Berry and Hardin and Mr. Waits, and repped once again for the Celtic Football Club, as he's been doing since the early '70s. It's unclear who's heart and who's soul. But it is clear who's an idol and who's a fan. The ''Heart & Soul'' tour continues on Saturday at the United Center in Chicago and on Sunday at the Joe Louis Arena in Detroit |
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OOPS-I put this in the Rumours page instead of the Stevie page & I don't seem to know how to move or delete it-SORRY!
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Yea, it is accurate and hilarious. But do you like or dislike that aspect of her? Because I wouldn't want her lyrics any other way. I love the unconventional sentence structure she uses in her songs and then takes to another level usually in live performances ("well I would" what stevie...., you complete the sentence in the studio version of stand back but said f*ck it for the rest of your career ) but again while that bothers my OCD a. It I also kind of love it that she has her own way of talking (singing) There's tons of examples but off the top of my head the one that always puzzled me the most is gate and garden: "you know nothing about what?" But I enjoy just going with it, and in her own words, it does sound great.
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Never Dance with the Devil He Will Burn You Down |
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Where does she say this in Gate and Garden?
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I believe they're referring to the "nobody knows nothing bout it" line.
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As a lyricist, on paper, Stevie's songs are opaque and incoherent. But her commitment to elliptical phrases, sudden shifts in voice, and unconventional use of conventional images is powerful--and all of it works because of that commitment. She delivers any number of ambiguous sentiments with a force that's hard to deny. |
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If Bob Dylan did this, would someone try to correct him?
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The heart and soul tour is the worst thing Stevie has ever done in her career IMHO. She allowed concert promoters to talk her into touring with Rod Stewart and she became an opening act. She did not need this. Rod completely disrespected Stevie. He never came on her stage but she came on stage for him. They only did one Stevie song (Leather and Lace) in only a couple cities. Rod did not even know the words and it was terrible. When Stevie toured together with Don Henley she showed him the respect he deserved and came on stage during his show to sing. Rod clearly thought he was too big of a star to do this and Stevie was reduced to an opening act.
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My heart will rise up with the morning sun and the hurt I feel will simply melt away |
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The difference between Rod and Don is that she aborted Don's baby(it was Don's, right?). So they have a bit more history... Who knows, maybe she slept with Rod, too. Mama got around, for sure...
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Christine McVie- she radiated both purity and sass in equal measure, bringing light to the music of the 70s. RIP. - John Taylor(Duran Duran) |
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Thank god she's corrected this monstracity with maybe one the greatest double bills of all time with the pretenders. And I'm saying that as someone who had no interest in the pretenders whatsoever beforehand. I still don't find their radio songs that good at all, but boy did they put on a great performance. And their quick punch style of playing songs is th perfect compliment to Stevie's long winded story fest (albeit with an equally great performance in between stories)
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Never Dance with the Devil He Will Burn You Down |
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Even in his own words state what an idiot this guy is. Remember the story he told when Stevie was in his house in the 1970's. Stevie had a glass of wine and told her "don't go in there" .....meaning don't go in the living room....you might spill it.
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My heart will rise up with the morning sun and the hurt I feel will simply melt away |
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