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Ashley Cleveland/Margaret Becker
halloo-
This past weekend I went to an Ashley Cleveland/Margaret Becker concert in
Hanover PA, which I had been anticipating for quite awhile. Concerts are a
much rarer phenomneon for me than for some of you, and Ashley is probably
my favorite singer (along with that Bergquist woman). Are any other
listees aware of her?
Anyway, the concert was very good. I was in the front row, maybe eight
feet from Ashley, and the sound was excellent. Both women were on stage
the whole time with their guitars, alternating songs and singing backup
for each other. I thought their musical styles, though quite different,
complemented each other nicely. Ashley plays mostly straight-up blues
rock, while Margaret has a more intricate, modern pop feel.
Ashley was wonderful as always - intelligent, earthy, passionate - but she
didn't play anything I hadn't heard. Margaret, though, was a revelation.
Back in the late 80s I had considered her one of my favorites, and saw her
with a band a couple of times (including once at Kingdom Bound Fest with a
guitarist named Ric Hordinski - you all should hear this guy, I think
you'd really like him) but I lost interest as she turned more to hiphoppy
pop and adult contemporary (CCM radio). I'd liked what I'd heard of her
more recent stuff, but still hadn't paid much attention. So I was seeing
her this time riding on Ashley's proverbial coattails, and I was very
impressed. She is an amazing solo performer. My favorite songs were "I
Wouldn't Know What Love Is" and "Soul Tattoo", both of which were more
exciting with just her acoustic guitar than they had been on the very pop
_Soul_ album, and "Just Come In", which I have loved since the
aforementioned Kingdom Bound concert. All in all, I was very pleased . . .
except it was TOO SHORT. Eighty minutes including encore, which was just
one song by Margaret, none by Ashley. Granted, that's quite a while to be
standing on stage with no break, and it seemed shorter because they each
only played half the time, but whatever happened to two fifty minute sets
and a double encore? I mentioned it to Ashley afterward, and she grimaced
like it wasn't her idea, but didn't really say anything about it. This
seems to be something of a trend recently; a couple of months ago, Loudon
Wainwright III also played a disappointingly short show here in
Harrisonburg. Both of these concerts were in theaters, not clubs. Is it
somehow classier to play short concerts (as well as to charge higher
ticket prices)? Has anyone else noticed this? I know the OtR Atlanta show
was longer (many thanks to JB for making this available, also to Jeff for
the C-stone show), but of course they *are* exceptionally cool. Anyway,
just wondering if any of you more frequent concertgoers could assuage or
affirm my fears that this is the way the world is heading.
Kirk
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