Much as I love listening to people explain how we are not a football club but the living embodiment of evil and a combination of the Black Soxs, Lance Armstrong, DDR athletics, the Spanish paralympic basketball team and that woman who caught the subway to win the Boston marathon, I need a break from it; so here’s my take on this week’s offering.
I put this record on, and I was alright…for a while (boom, boom, Mr Derek) but then instead of just having a hum along as I might normally do with Roy Orbison, I found myself increasingly thinking about what a strange outlier he is in popular music.
I remember being staggered when he died that they reported he was only 52 years old. I had assumed he was much older; I thought that because (at the time to me) he sounded like he came from another long past era. But the more I read about him and listening with hindsight it wasn’t so much that that he came from an older era but more that he came from his own little world that didn’t really fit in with the rest of pop music too much anyway. Granted there was a short period where he was viewed as innovative but then his rockabilly and country orientation began to be seen in some quarters as old hat as tastes changed. There is an irony in this in that he was in part responsible for introducing the Beatles to the US with the attendant wave of changes that blew away much of what had come before. I do wonder if the tragedies he endured during the late 60’s meant that he got ‘stuck’ musically for a time and had they not occurred would he have gone in different and more innovative directions than his tepid output from the 70s or whether he simply peaked early with his body of work before a final mini renaissance with the Travelling Wilburys? I can understand why people might think he strays into crooner territory, but I think he's quite a bit odder (in a good way) than the typical fare in that space.
He was somewhat otherworldly, he looked a bit odd, he dressed slightly oddly, his stage performance style was odd, his voice was unique, and his songs were often quite unusual too. On the video of this concert there are regular shots of the likes of Springsteen and Costello looking at him as if he’s some strange alien deity they have discovered.
His voice is amazing in terms of its range and distinctiveness, there’s a reason people tend not to try and cover his songs. However, I don’t agree with Elvis that he was the best singer in the world. Being picky (me being the great singer that I am of course) ultimately I don’t think he is massively versatile because he doesn’t have a hugely range of dynamics at the bottom end of his voice, so he as goes through his range you know what you are going to get dynamically and there’s not too much surprise. What you get is something unmistakably Roy Orbison because it exploits his natural talents but rarely comes out of its (admittedly excellent) comfort zone. To use Elvis as a direct comparison, though he may not have had the effortless range of Orbison I think he had more flexibility in his voice and a willingness to try something different. That said, I’ve never been sure if it wasn’t just that the kind of songs that Orbison really liked to write didn’t fully showcase his voice, as crazy as that sounds to say. Either way, his very specific distinctiveness is a double edge sword to me because it sometimes comes at the expense of variety which is not a problem when you are listening to a few hits but can be when you are listening to an album of 17 songs.
As for the songs themselves on this setlist they range from absolute classics to the frankly strange. His lyrical focus on the wounded vulnerable man is at odds with most of rock / pop music before we even get into the way many of the songs just meander off melodically in whichever direction he wants to go. Both musically and lyrically several of them should be car crashes but, somehow, they are not. Running Scared is a good example, a melodramatic repetitive refrain over which he sings faintly histrionic lyrics that should be laughable and yet it works really well; in large part, I think, because of his voice. Hats off to him for that.
The arrangements themselves on this live performance are by and large very enjoyable. That said much of the all-star mugging around I think is for the benefit of the video and doesn’t add a huge amount without the visuals. When watched, it is made more special by the variety of people on board, ignoring the slightly annoying ‘artful’ shots that regularly crop up. However, if I’m purely listening, can I really tell it’s Costello strumming away or Tom Waits tinkling the ivories, not really. I think the possible exception to that is the backing vocals which are interesting. What they occasionally lose in the quality of harmonies say compared to really top-notch backing singers, they make up for by having character and the ability if you listen enough to actually identify the voices in question, both male and female. A side benefit of listening to, rather than watching, this is I don’t get pissed off by the fact that three exceptional women musicians get relegated to the background whilst the lads get to gurn around the front of the stage in a self-congratulatory fashion. I particularly enjoyed final track Pretty Woman without the video for that reason. (As an aside, much as I like Bonnie Raitt and KD Lang, imo the best voice in that particular backing group belongs to Jennifer Warnes who can be forgiven for her crimes with Joe Cocker and Bill Medley because of the marvellous Famous Blue Raincoat).
Unlike others I think the running order is fairly smart and seems to me to spread his big songs across the beginning, middle and end of the concert. Also unlike other comments I think Roy Orbison is fairly unique in pop music and this is a good showcase of his music which is nicely executed. However, I’m not too convinced many of the performances actually add to his legacy which to me is the main, possibly only, reason to release a live album.
So overall it’s good though occasionally I thought listening in its entirety possibly illustrates that you can actually have too much of a good thing if it isn’t sufficiently varied.
On that basis I’m giving it 7/10.
