Beth Orton
4/11/6
Beth Orton came out with her beautiful sheepish grin, accepting flowers and sucking on a Ricola. Her voice was as soulful as usual and showing of the depth of vocal range that she offers forth on her studio recordings. She was also somewhat engaging with a funny little joke, “What is E.T. short for? Because he has little legs!”
Beth played a very well rounded set, letting us hear songs off every album. She opened with a couple of songs off of her newest album, “Comfort of Strangers” including a song full of the usual heartbreaking imagery, “Safe in Your Arms.” Soon thereafter, she turned to an old favorite, performing an acoustic solo version of “Central Reservation.” After this was the really bittersweet “Someone’s Daughter.” She came back to her newest album, Comfort of Strangers, with a song that easily fits among the best of her previous works, “Shadow of a Doubt.” As a special treat, she asked Willy Mason and Nina Violet to sing backup and play violin on “Heart of Soul.” Afterwards, she played the title track on her new one: “Comfort of Strangers” just for a moment only to treat us to a special older song, “Sugar Boy.” She followed this up with “Countenance” from the new album.
For her first encore, she played the piano for the song, “Worms,” which is the last track on her newest album Comfort of Strangers. It was really beautiful to see her play the piano during this as her long slender fingers hit those keys. It really enhanced the song for me.
She returned to the guitar for “Feral Children,” before playing another old favorite, “Pass in Time.” Ending the first encore, she played, “A Place Aside.” Beth waited only a minute before coming out for another encore, playing “Sweetest Decline” and singing a cover of a popular older tune that Nina Simone among others have done Ooh Child Finally, Beth Orton came out for the third time and played the very first song I ever heard by her over the indie air waves, “She Cries Your Name.” It was really special.
You can listen to Beth Orton’s songs on her myspace page
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April 16th, 2006 at 7:11 pm
I have to check out that new Beth Orton CD. I liked her “Central Reservation” album, paticularly “The Stars All Seemed To Weep.”
April 16th, 2006 at 10:58 pm
I really like it…it’s full of the usual scattered imagery that I think really identifies her. At first, I was sort of just hoping she’d play the old stuff but having listened to Comfort of Strangers nearly ten times the week I left for NY, I felt almost a kinship with the new songs. So I guess I would say that it’s a grower and some of the songs definitely live up to her earlier work.