Over the past few days the Sydney Festival website has been flooded with complaints from concertgoers (scroll down), angry about the shambolic nature of Hal Willner's Rogue's Gallery concert last Thursday.Festival artistic director Lindy Hume has posted no less than two statements in reply on the festival website, the latest one opening thus:
"Over the last few days the Sydney Festival team and I have been coming to terms with the harsh reality that so many of you have expressed your disappointment in Rogue's Gallery. We all feel terrible that an evening we had planned as a joyful, raucous musical celebration on the steps of the Sydney Opera House has alienated so many people. This is definitely not the way we wanted the 2010 Festival to end..."
My review ran in The Australian yesterday, and since isn't online, and the Monday edition is no longer for sale, I'm posting it here:
Sydney FestivalRogue’s Gallery, Sydney Opera House forecourt, January 28
US producer Hal Willner got away with this one by the skin of his teeth. The high spots will live in the memory, blotting out the low ones, of which there were too many for an event at this price ($145+ per ticket).
A program of traditional sea shanties sung by a sprawling and an eccentric combination of major, minor (and non) talents was always going to be hit or miss. But who could have predicted how big the misses would be; that drawcard Marianne Faithfull would embarrassingly struggle with her words and miss the notes, for instance?
I certainly didn’t guess the clear standouts would be a batch of under-celebrated female singers - Ireland’s Camille O’Sullivan, Britain’s Marry Waterson (from the Waterson-Carthy folk clan) and Australia’s Sarah Blasko (pictured above right). On this showing all deserve to be showered with fortune and global fame. Blasko’s sublime acapella tribute to the late Kate McGarrigle was a shivers down the spine moment. O’Sullivan (with Todd Rundgren and without) demonstrated superb stagecraft and vocal prowess.
Planting hands confidently on hips, as if to say “now THIS is how you sing a folk song”), Waterson commanded attention with a deep understanding of the traditional form. So where were the Australian folkies, and why were we subjected to the “singing“ of Tim Robbins, a man whose gifts are manifestly not of the musical kind?
Opening in steady rain that at least echoed the sea-lashed maritime theme, the first hour was an under-rehearsed curio verging on a shambles. First act Baby Gramps, an old-timer whose main gimmick is to sing like a didgeridoo, went on and on. Peter Garrett and the great Rundgren put their hearts and souls into their songs, ex-Pere Ubu frontman David Thomas growled to no good effect and raunch-mistress Peaches was accompanied by a queer pantomime act who would have looked pathetic in a pub open-mic night.
At the roughly one hour mark, just as the concert was looking a giant fizzer, Liam Finn (son of Neil) and Augie March’s Glenn Richards came to the rescue with Blood Red Roses accompanied by a chorus that actually seemed to have rehearsed. Stirring stuff, beautifully sung. The rain miraculously stopped and the music turned magnificent for the next half hour before an uneven race to a Pogues-like knees-up of a finale led by Garrett.
9 comments:
I saw the adverts for this show and it looked absolutely appalling. When an ad for a concert cannot define what the show is about, when all the performers seem to be has-beens or ring-ins (I mean, Tim Robbins? Why should we pay to indulge his musical meanderings?) and on top of that it's priced at $145+ ....there was no way in the world I would have paid to see this concert.
It does sound like it was arrogantly staged and run (shambolic = cool) and that is unforgiveable, but a close look at the advertising would have indicated that this was not something to put on the top of your list.
Besides which - Sarah Blasko being a stand out is no surprise. Her performances at corner pubs ($10 door charge) have been rivetting for sereval years.
Were there any double entendres about music piracy buried anywhere at all in this event? Just curious...
Can I also ask about the very bad English..... Rogue's Gallery? Who was the one rogue? Did this event only have one rogue? Oi vay already.
1. I have never seen such sustained criticism to one show. But it's interesting how many SF patrons are hooked up, and able to complain quickly. A sign for the future.
2. I love the album, have done since it was released. I have however, always meant to re-burn both discs and remove the Baby Gramps songs. They are annoying at a level I find astonishing. I'd rather bathe in cold porridge than be submitted to a live performance by him/them.
3. Being a Melbournian, I slept slightly on the chance to see the Willner/Cohen show, and missed it. I will regret that to my dying day. I was thus excited about the chance to see another Willner record I loved in some kind of live presentation, but I thought the line-up was so drained of quality, it was very easy to pass on it.
4. Number 3 is not necessarily a great thing, but if any good has come out of it, I was proven slightly incorrect by the quality of the local artists. Small comfort.
5. I enjoyed you wearing the "festival director" cap again Lynden, and applying some vigorous defence of LH in the comments section. Your points were all fair, and well put.
6. Somewhere in the comments morass, someone suggested it was a "50 buck Enmore show", and that sounds about right to me. I guess the warm glow and kudos from the Cohen tribute pushed the show to the Opera House steps. Clearly that warm glow won't be seen or felt again!
Nice summary Lynden, thanks for drawing it together,
Cheers,
Via Collins.
Thanks all, and via Collins, glad you noticed my numerous comments on the Sydney Festival website. I certainly think the festival was remiss in some respects (reducing the ticket price would have seen some of the revenue drop offset by increased sales, surely?). But some of the complaints levelled at Lindy Hume were not very intelligent. I guess having been a festival director I have a sharpened appreciation of what a reasonable complaint looks like!
And while I'm waiting for someone to object that I got a free reviewer's ticket (true), I should point out that my household had already spent close to $300 on tickets for the concert - which we gave to two family members after I was asked to review it.
It's a fascinating cultural car crash in so many ways. Some people definitely deserved what they got from you Lyndon - espcially in the "what were you expecting?" area.
Harking back to the Cohen tribute, in many ways, Rogue's Gallery is almost the antithesis - raw and messy rather than gentle and calming - but does an arts festival need to signpost literally? - "warning - it's a Hal Willner project, but not as digestible as the last one we put on, so please do be very careful before shelling out".
That said, $140 is unbelievable for what was on offer.
Back to Willner, I reckon I own a dozen os so albums he steered one way or another - and the one I always thought a natural for arts festivals was the Disney tribute, "stay awake". If people want to be angry at festival directors, get angry that no-one in Oz ever saw fit to fly Sun Ra's Arkestra down to parade the street playing Disney songs in space age big band format!
Back to Willner - he's a boundary-pusher, a true artist who uses music as his form. This one seems to have backfired - but that's the chance you take. Bet his next one's a cracker. And as he's always struck me as a good sort, if he knew the level of unhappiness here after the gig, I bet he'd want to make amends somehow.
Yes, I always like to quote the example of Sun Ra on the Disney tribute album!. It didnt really work but hey, it was worth trying. I thibk one of the issues here is that many of the audience were older folk who expected a seated concert. What they got was the Opera House's cold, wet steps. When you think of the sccessful concerts on the forecourt in the past, they've tended to attract young-ish audiences, eg. Bjork , Crowded House farewell, who didnt mind standing, and were already dedicated fans of the headliner. One area that Hume does deserve some flak on - but curiously hasnt got any - is her admission in The Australian that she didn't go any of the concert, despite being at the Stravinsky event inside the SOH - only a few yards away. That was clearly a misjudgement. Bet she's regretting that now.
au contraire Lyden, I saw the Sun Ra Arkestra performing a whole show of Disney songs in New Orleans back in '89. Once at a primary school for kids only - kooky & gentle, once at a university - raucous!, and then an open air show at the main festival.
Great players, dressed to the nines in sparkly outfits, the younger ones leaping around like acrobats - it was one of the greatest shows I've ever seen.
I had missed the admission that Hume did not step out to take the show in for a few minutes - agree, that is quite staggering. Maybe she was being tweeted; "the natives are revolting!"
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