Performer Delivers With Power And Style
By Bruce Mowat, The Hamilton Spectator, May 23rd 1997
The ascendant career of Canadian singer Amanda Marshall should come as no surprise to anybody who's followed pop music over the past 40 years.
For one thing, Marshall has a distinctive voice and personality that appeals to people. For another, She's doing
what any number of people ranging from Bob Seger to Michael Bolton have done in the past. She takes raw
material from R&B and rock and gives it a clipped and polished, contemporary pop treatment. Conversely, she
also takes assembly-line pop material and puts some roots-motion into it.
Wednesday night's sold-out concert at Hamilton Place is conclusive proof the approach still yields successful
results, as the crowd enthusiastically responded to her slick and studied boogaloo-ing.
The concert drew a wide cross-section of fans, ranging from teens and pre-teens to aging baby-boomers, and the 24-year-old Toronto native didn't disappoint any of them.
After an pre-taped introduction that mixed R&B instrumentals and speech clips from the late Martin Luther King
Jr., the stage curtain dropped to reveal her five-piece backing band.
The audience knew what was coming, and roared its approval when Marshall rushed up to the microphone.
Wearing a white suit done up to reveal an expanse of navel, Marshall began warming up the crowd with her
material, throwing in a roots-homage reading of Ann Peebles' I Can't Stand The Rain.
When she performed one of her big hits, Let It Rain (not the Eric Clapton number), the audience's excitement
levels began to escalate to fever pitch, and many in the audience were moved to get out of their seats to sway and clap along.
By the time she finished her regular set with the song Birmingham, everybody was up on their feet, clapping and singing along to her gospel-influenced call-and responses.
An appreciative audience called her back for a two-song encore that included a reading of the Squeeze song,
Tempted.
Opening act Chantal Kreviazuk limped on stage in a cast, cracked a few jokes, and began playing a solo
piano-accompanied set of five numbers.
Kreviazuk's style is reminiscent of the school of introspective female songwriters that starts at Carole King and
ends at Sarah McLachlan.
Her cascading, impressionistic piano figures and her clear, powerful voice got a warm response from the crowd.
One tip, though: Kreviazuk should back off from the microphone during her searing voice surges. Ouch!
One other thing. Normally, intermission music at concerts is something to be mentally filtered out.
The person responsible for Wednesday night's between-set musical choices, though, deserves a round of
refreshments. Anybody who plays such choice R&B nuggets as Jean Knight's Mr. Big Stuff is OK with me.