Amanda Marshall concert showcases best of everything
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Bruce Deachman
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The Ottawa Citizen
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Sunday, March 03, 2002
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Amanda Marshall promised, and delivered, both new and old songs at the NAC Friday night, kicking off her tour in support of her third album, Everybody's Got A Story.
With the new CD comes a new sound for the 28-year-old Toronto singer, a younger, poppier flavour that may take time for fans of her adult-oriented pop-rock debut CD, Amanda Marshall, to digest.
But if Friday night's crowd --largely a 30s and 40s set -- was any indication, Marshall's voice may win the day.
Friday's concert was a carefully-sequenced, 2 1/4-hour show that successfully executed the daunting task of giving the audience what it wanted (the old stuff), while still showcasing the new.
She opened with Ride, from her second disc, Tuesday's Child, before launching into Dizzy, from her latest. But it wasn't until her third song, Fall From Grace, from her best-selling debut, that the sellout crowd came to life.
Fronting a six-piece band and a pair of backup vocalists, it was Marshall's voice that stood out throughout the evening. Her pipes combine that rare combination of a Janis Joplin-like guttural quality with a powerfully clear resonance, especially when she belts it out.
The advantage of a fresh voice unmarred by countless nights on the road was offset by some sloppy mixing on the sound-board, though, an especially disappointing turn, given that one should expect the sacrifice of the intimacy of a club show, where Marshall is best seen, to be made up for by the NAC's fine acoustics.
Such was not the case Friday night, as Marshall's quieter vocals were often drowned out by her musicians, most notably the Korg synthesizer which sometimes rendered Marshall almost inaudible. As well, the bass, drums, percussion, guitars and keyboards seemed as though they were all set to the same volume, producing an overall murkiness.
Marshall's foray into teen-pop also accounted for some unevenness, as the difference between older material and new songs was immediately apparent, and sometimes jarring. Many of the songs from her new record -- accounting for half of Friday's show -- possessed that overly-dramatic, rib-shaking bass, drum and synthesizer patterns so familiar to fans of the Backstreet Boys and Britney Spears (the latter of which she dissed, claiming more kinship with Aretha Franklin's R-E-S-P-E-C-T than Spears' Hit me baby one more time).
Still, while the crowd favoured familiar hits such as Dark Horse, If I Didn't Have You, Birmingham and an outstanding version of Last Exit To Eden, the newer material, in particular Colleen, ...Story, Red Magic Marker and the show-closer Sunday Morning After, were enthusiastically received.
The show's pacing, too, was excellent. Her quieter three-song sequence of Sitting On Top Of The World, Marry Me and Colleen, for example, was the perfect launchpad for the up-tempo and catchy Everybody's Got A Story, the only song that got any of the crowd (albeit just four young women) to rise, unbidden, and dance.
The show's success, though, was in Marshall's voice, an instrument that humbles even the most gifted musicians. With it she could sing klezmer music or folk and still knock out crowds.
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