Re-defining moments from a major artist
by opentuned on 2010-03-08Arden Theatre - St AlbertSome might attempt to dismiss Vega's re-recordings in her new Close-Up series as Vega Unplugged, but that would be a major disservice to a timeless body of work. Vega Distilled might be a more fitting description, as she revisits her material with the eye of an editor cutting right to the essence, resulting in many definitive versions of her songs. In concert, it is a striking dissertation. If anyone has combined acoustic guitar and electric bass in as compelling a fashion as this, Vega and longtime bassist Mike Visceglia have driven them from my recollection, her upstroke-picking and his nimble lava-bubble bass winding around each other in unique fashion. The great musicians can play it pretty, and can play it tough. The really great ones can do it simultaneously, and even in the quietest moments, there is solid steel behind this artist. The bite of songs like "Left of Center" and "Blood Makes Noise" are as tough as anyone tagged with the term "folk" has ever been associated, and the softness of "Gypsy" and the seduction of "Caramel" are tempered by Vega's elucidations of the songwriting processes involved. Her dissection of the boy-meets-cougar boy-uses-cougar boy-dumps-cougar storyline of Rod Stewart's "Maggie May" led into her own (and better) "I'll Never Be Your Maggie May". The new arrangements are most strikingly effective on the songs from her earliest recordings, opening up anew tracks like "Some Journey" and "Small Blue Thing". This concert took me back to the very first live music I ever saw, Johnny Cash in 1989, where he was more than unhappy with Mercury Records and the music business in general, and all he could control was his own performance, which was astonishing. This is an artistic revitalization on the same scale as the American Recordings, but with no Rick Rubin required, and Vega firmly in control. Since her early days, Vega has built a repertoire that puts her peer-to-peer, toe-to-toe with those who initially inspired her, and has become as much a part of New York as it is of her. It must be difficult to be a sophisticated songwriter in the days of huge audiences jumping on the party boat/garbage scow that is Jersey Shore and overprocessed Disney music ruling the charts, but Vega seems willing to do the work to put herself and her songs back into the prominence they once had and have always deserved. The aftereffects of a show like this are far different from your typical concert. You're not going to have your head blown off your shoulders or be overcome by the warm fuzzies, Vega is too objective to pander, almost a photojournalist transposed to the field of music, and surefooted to the nth as to where the stage ends and life begins. Detachment is not a bad thing, and music needs more of it. I spent the next day wandering aimlessly through parts of Edmonton, with a fresh detached eye for fine detail, marveling at the vividness of the minutiae of everyday life. If there is any unifying theme in Suzanne Vega's music, it's "Keep your eyes open. There's a lot going on."