Post by Deleted on May 21, 2014 18:26:02 GMT 1
Reviewer rating:
Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars
The Palais, May 21
It’s not often that you see the entire crowd rise to their feet at a seated music venue in Melbourne, but after waiting a long, long time for Lauryn Hill to return to our shores, the audience was keen to show its appreciation. That Hill was nearly an hour late on stage clearly mattered little to the adoring lot at the first of two sold-out concerts at the Palais, who remained on their feet for the duration of the 80-minute show.
The bulk of the performance drew from her critically acclaimed, five-time Grammy-winning, multi-platinum solo debut, The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, in which the then 23-year-old Hill, recently emancipated from R’n’B trio the Fugees, grabbed the attention of the world with her thoughtful, deeply personal lyrics, skilful genre-hopping and lashings of soul.
Pre-iPods and YouTube, it was a huge, important record in the days when albums were still listened to from start to finish, with every song treasured in equal measure.
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Sixteen years after its release and a long, tumultuous break from the spotlight, Hill on this tour has traded those downtempo, soulful tunes for variations that, while technically sound and often enjoyable, sometimes lacked the simple beauty of the originals.
A funked-up version of Everything is Everything felt faintly like cabaret at one point, but the format her songs followed tended to reward most towards the end, when the sped-up/rocky/reggae/rap renditions of tracks like Final Hour, Ex-Factor and To Zion gave way to slowed-down sections that allowed that still-superb voice to shine.
Her trio of sassy backup singers deserve a special mention, too. The backing band were all brilliant, but those girls and their gorgeous harmonies were good enough to sell tickets in their own right.
When Hill broke into rap, as she did often, it was fast and furious but also largely unintelligible, a shame when she’s so eloquent.
A brief acoustic interlude showcased two songs from her second and most recent record - the MTV unplugged album that was released over a decade ago. They were well received, and Hill’s unaccompanied voice was spine-chilling, but the biggest cheer was reserved for when the band came back to run through some of her best-loved work with the Fugees.
Zealots and Fu-gee-la got the reggae treatment, but a revisit of the song she briefly opened with, the Fugees’ famed take on Roberta Flack’s Killing Me Softly, was largely unadulterated and resonated more for it.
A cover of Bob Marley’s Could You Be Loved and the infectious Doo Wop (That Thing) were sweet notes to send us home on, and it’s doubtful anyone was too upset that we didn’t hear much of the newer, angrier stuff she wrote while serving three months in
jail for tax evasion last year.
Would we have preferred to hear Ex-Factor as it sounded on Miseducation, spare and sublime? Sure. But the fact that Hill’s updates were never anything less than eminently listenable is testament to that stupendous voice, in whatever form it takes - and when it’s so long between visits, we’re more than happy to take what we can get.
Read more: www.brisbanetimes.com.au/entertainment/music/review-lauryn-hills-superb-voice-shines-in-melbourne-20140522-zrkhg.html#ixzz32N7xxg00
Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars
The Palais, May 21
It’s not often that you see the entire crowd rise to their feet at a seated music venue in Melbourne, but after waiting a long, long time for Lauryn Hill to return to our shores, the audience was keen to show its appreciation. That Hill was nearly an hour late on stage clearly mattered little to the adoring lot at the first of two sold-out concerts at the Palais, who remained on their feet for the duration of the 80-minute show.
The bulk of the performance drew from her critically acclaimed, five-time Grammy-winning, multi-platinum solo debut, The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, in which the then 23-year-old Hill, recently emancipated from R’n’B trio the Fugees, grabbed the attention of the world with her thoughtful, deeply personal lyrics, skilful genre-hopping and lashings of soul.
Pre-iPods and YouTube, it was a huge, important record in the days when albums were still listened to from start to finish, with every song treasured in equal measure.
Advertisement
Sixteen years after its release and a long, tumultuous break from the spotlight, Hill on this tour has traded those downtempo, soulful tunes for variations that, while technically sound and often enjoyable, sometimes lacked the simple beauty of the originals.
A funked-up version of Everything is Everything felt faintly like cabaret at one point, but the format her songs followed tended to reward most towards the end, when the sped-up/rocky/reggae/rap renditions of tracks like Final Hour, Ex-Factor and To Zion gave way to slowed-down sections that allowed that still-superb voice to shine.
Her trio of sassy backup singers deserve a special mention, too. The backing band were all brilliant, but those girls and their gorgeous harmonies were good enough to sell tickets in their own right.
When Hill broke into rap, as she did often, it was fast and furious but also largely unintelligible, a shame when she’s so eloquent.
A brief acoustic interlude showcased two songs from her second and most recent record - the MTV unplugged album that was released over a decade ago. They were well received, and Hill’s unaccompanied voice was spine-chilling, but the biggest cheer was reserved for when the band came back to run through some of her best-loved work with the Fugees.
Zealots and Fu-gee-la got the reggae treatment, but a revisit of the song she briefly opened with, the Fugees’ famed take on Roberta Flack’s Killing Me Softly, was largely unadulterated and resonated more for it.
A cover of Bob Marley’s Could You Be Loved and the infectious Doo Wop (That Thing) were sweet notes to send us home on, and it’s doubtful anyone was too upset that we didn’t hear much of the newer, angrier stuff she wrote while serving three months in
jail for tax evasion last year.
Would we have preferred to hear Ex-Factor as it sounded on Miseducation, spare and sublime? Sure. But the fact that Hill’s updates were never anything less than eminently listenable is testament to that stupendous voice, in whatever form it takes - and when it’s so long between visits, we’re more than happy to take what we can get.
Read more: www.brisbanetimes.com.au/entertainment/music/review-lauryn-hills-superb-voice-shines-in-melbourne-20140522-zrkhg.html#ixzz32N7xxg00
