Vanessa-Mae live in Dresden (2005)

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VANESSA-MAE ON 'CHOREOGRAPHY' TOUR

LIVE IN DRESDEN ON FEBRUARY 8TH 2005

Contents:
1) program
2) review
3 photos

program:

Sabre Dance
Havana Slide
- speech -
Roxanne's Veil
Bolero for Violin and Orchestra
Solace
Tango De Los Exilados
Laughing Buddha (electric violion)
Hocus Pocus
- introduction of the band -
Moroccan Roll
- speech -
Theme from Caravans (electric violin)
Retro (electric violin)
- speech -
Bach Street Prelude
I Am A Doun
Raga's Dance
Emerald Tiger
- speech -
Toccata & Fugue
Storm

encore
Sabre Dance

Review:
Vanessa-Mae kicked of her 'Choreography' tour on Tuesday February 8th in Dresden. I visited the show together with Gerrit Bijsterbosch, a colleague fan from the Netherlands. We knew each other already from the 'Vanessa-Mae Fans Forum' but had never actually met. I think it is correct to say that we both enjoyed our mutual company on both the travel to Dresden, our stay in Dresden and the way back to home. Of course we talked a lot about Vanessa-Mae, but other diverse issues were topic of our conversation as well varying from our daily life, work and professional background to other musicians and artists of our interest. Fro me, this show was already my 6th concert of Vanessa-Mae and with this I can consider myself a real veteran by now. For Gerrit, the Dresden concert marked his debut experience of seeing Vanessa-Mae live on stage, and I think he enjoyed himself very much and considers it the worth the time and costs of travelling to Dresden.

The show was more or less comparable with Vanessa-Mae's concert in the London 'Royal Festival Hall, last October, only 'Clear Lile Ice' was skipped from and 'Hocus Pocus' and 'Theme from Caravans' were added to the program. Moreover, the encore was limited to only repeating 'Sabre Dance' and the order of playing differed on details (compare the program listings with the program of the 'Royal Festival Hall concert'). All in all, Vanessa-Mae played 19 pieces during both concerts. More importantly though this evening, several of the songs were played in new and adjusted arrangements. I will elaborate into more details on this further on.

Unfortunately, Vanessa-Mae wearing the same costume as during the London concert. Of course, she has a variety of outfits available for her tour of concerts and accidental she chose the same as she had in London. Although Vanessa-Mae looks great wearing this top made of satin fibre in colours of pink, blue to purple and the flowered blue pants, I would have preferred another outfit because this would have made my photos more differently from those taken at the London concert. Anyway, Vanessa-Mae's physical presentation showed the usual conceptual styling in details of matching colours of clothes and make-up. The colours in shades of pink to purple of her top and the blue of her pair of trousers came back this evening in the dark purple of her eye shadow and the dark red purple lipstick, whereas at the London concert she had light blue and pink as matching colours in her make-up. Whatever the combination is, Vanessa-Mae's clothes and face are always more than perfect; several of my photos below clearly show that Vanessa-Mae was quite heavily made up with an expressive accentuation of her eyes and month!

The audience this evening was varied, ranging from teenagers and young adults, to middle aged and elderly people. The venue was sold out completely. I struck me during the concert that the audience though enthusiastic was very politely, applauded gently after Vanessa-Mae finished a song, and silenced immediately when she indicated that she wanted to continue with the next part of the show.

Vanessa-Mae played very well and passionately, as did her band and acoustic string section. Vanessa-Mae was joined by a band of about 7 people (guitarist, drummer, percussion, keyboard, bass guitarist, flute, sax and some others) and a string section of violinists and cellists (about 12-15).

Of course this concert can't possible be compared to Vanessa-Mae concerts at her pop tours like the 'Red Hot Tour' and 'Storm On World Tour,' but seeing her change from a 'happy bunny' girl of 16-19 years old into the adult she is now, it becomes noticeable that this young unconstrained girl who simply liked everything that crossed her path does not exist anymore. I more or less knew this already, but when Gerrit commented on the concert afterwards that he expected her to be more lively and movable on stage, I came to full conscious and active realisation of this fact. Today, Vanessa-Mae is a modest and reserved person, almost shy in fact. Basically she has always been a shy girl who has lived through a protected childhood as a young girl and as a teenager surrounded by adults.

This makes an interesting topic and I will go into this in one of my forthcoming 'monthly letters.' I just need some time to think this all over and will come back to this soon. The fact as it is in my opinion, makes Vanessa-Mae a more likable and lovable person. It shows that she has a complex personality and such is not strange considering all she has gone through in her life of being a child prodigy who turns overnight into a world wide superstar.

Several songs were played in special and new arrangements. Of course the music of the new album 'Choreography' was the most important feature of the concert, but there were also tracks from her previous work. Vanessa-Mae played music from her debut pop album 'The Violin Player,' 'Storm' and 'Subject To Change.' This selection together with the works from 'Choreography' adequately showed how versatile Vanessa-Mae is as musician and as an artist. However, a concert of a good 95 minutes can't possible be long enough to serve a comprehensive overview for Vanessa-Mae's unique and diverse career of her parallel achievements in both classical and pop music genres. For the most part of the show, Vanessa-Mae used her acoustic Guadagnini violin. I will specifically mention it when she used her electric violin.

The show started with 'Sabre Dance,' the same opener as the London concert. This music offers Vanessa-Mae every opportunity to showcase her virtuosity as violin instrumentalist: and she did so by playing it perfectly and passionately resulting in full attention and involvement of the audience in the concert. Then 'Havana Slide' was played equally well, both song according the lines of the 'Choreography' album.

Then Vanessa-Mae hold her welcome speech. She told the audience how happy she always is to tour in Germany as the country is beautiful and the audiences always so good her. She then commemorated the recent floods of the river Elbe and she expressed her feelings of respect that all the damage has been repaired so well and quick. Vanessa-Mae ended this first speech with naming Vangelis as composer of her next music and by mentioning the fact that 'Roxanne's Veil' is part of the sound track of Oliver Stone's movie 'Alexander.' 'Roxanne's Veil' is a wonderful track to hear when performed live on stage. Vanessa-Mae's acoustic violin sounds so great accompanied by the synthesizer sound. The song still grows on me, and now, after initial reservations, I am convinced to the opinion that Vangelis wrote an absolute masterpiece for our Vanessa-Mae.

The 'Bolero,' the 'Tango,' 'Emerald Tiger,' 'Raga's Dance,' and 'Moroccan Roll' from the 'Choreography' album were all played very well according to the lines as they are on the album. I will not go into more details since my opinion on these songs has not changed: they all have been close to my heart from the first time that I heard them.

For this concert, the album 'Subject To Change' was represented by 'Solace' and Laughing Buddha.' 'Solace' is such an emotional duet with a guitar. I used to listen to 'Solace' very often when I had sorrow times due to family circumstances. Somehow the song cheers me up when I hear Vanessa-Mae play it, live or from recording. 'Laughing Buddha' was played on electric violin and is such a virtuoso piece of music with great dynamics, tempo changes and fine tunes, sound effects that were triggered by Vanessa-Mae via pedals that she had to touch with her foot. Vanessa-Mae was exceptional great here!!

'Hocus Pocus' and 'Theme From Caravans' were the extra pieces with respect to the London concert. After 'Hocus Pocus,' played on acoustic violin, Vanessa-Mae introduced the band. I love this piece as Vanessa-Mae mimics the voice of Thijs van Leer on the original composition very well and convincingly that it is a sheer joy when she plays this music. 'Themes From Caravan' is one a great compositions on Vanessa-Mae' debut pop album 'The Violin Player.' She played it on electric violin. The nicest thing at this concert was that the arrangements for the accompanying instruments were markedly different from the album version, especially the flute parts sounded very nice.

One of my all time favourites remains 'I Am A Doun.' This time, as well as for the London concert, Vanessa-Mae performed it without the vocal intro, but in an arrangement with much more drums and piano. An other favourite of mine to see and hear Vanessa-Mae play live at her concerts is 'Bach Street Prelude.' As at the London concert, Vanessa-Mae was seated on the edge of the stage when she played the song accompanied by a percussionist using all kind of attributes, small drums and all kind of other attributes to make tunes and noises. The nice part of this piece is that Vanessa-Mae and the percussionist stimulate and stir up one another to heights of contagious enthusiasm that really jump over to the audience. Only this time, both Vanessa-Mae and the percussionist sat on opposite parts of the stage and that made that mutual effect of body languages on the other less effective, especially considering the fact that for the audience it is impossible to view them both constantly at the same time. I have some photos below that show Vanessa-Mae sitting on stage when she played 'Bach Street Prelude.'

After 'Moroccan Roll' Vanessa-Mae asked the audience: 'Do you want some electric?' The audience applauded and Vanessa-Mae replied: 'Yeah, then you'll get some electric violin!' After 'Emerald Tiger, Vanessa-Mae told the audience that she always needed to play some of the oldies and that she wouldn't name the titles because all would recognise them immediately. She said that these songs never ever age and that they remain close to her heart. Of course these well known oldies were 'Toccata and Fugue' and 'Storm' two brilliant compositions in wild live dynamic performances.

'Sabre Dance' as one single encore completed the concert!

Photos of the show

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