CAROLE KING: IN CONCERT (1994)
1) Hard Rock Cafe; 2) Up On
The Roof; 3) Smackwater Jack; 4) So Far Away; 5) Beautiful; 6) Natural Woman;
7) Hold Out For Love; 8) Will You Love Me Tomorrow; 9) Jazzman; 10) It's Too
Late; 11) Chains; 12) I Feel The Earth Move; 13) You've Got A Friend; 14)
Locomotion; 15) You've Got A Friend.
I like how this was officially called The Colour Of Your Dreams Tour, yet a
grand total of one song from that
album actually made it onto the accompanying live album — perhaps she did
perform a bit more on stage, but I doubt it, because, well, it's Carole King,
and if Carole King goes on stage, she has to do Tapestry in its entirety (8 out of 12 songs, to be accurate — the
other four they don't play on the radio that often), plus a few of the lively
golden oldies like ʽChainsʼ and ʽLocomotionʼ, and before you know it, you're
running out of time and nobody wants to hear the crap you've been writing of
late anyway. Who we're kidding?
Time has pretty much rendered this record
useless, particularly now that the vaults have been opened and you can listen
to a young and fresh Carole singing the same songs at Carnegie Hall in 1971 —
but she does have the advantage of preserving her voice and charisma in an
immaculate state, so as long as she and her band do not tamper too seriously
with the songs, it doesn't make that
much difference whether you're listening to a 1971 or a 1993 performance: the
lady carries that classic vibe with her in her pocket wherever she goes, and
she'll be sticking to her guns even if we all turn into a bunch of grinning
post-modern nihilists overnight.
Unfortunately, from time to time they do tamper with the songs, and as hard it
is to spoil a great Carole King tune when Carole King herself is performing it,
they almost succeed with ʽBeautifulʼ,
which is given a smooth and soulless adult contemporary sheen — apparently, as
a «pleasant surprise» for the audience, which sits in befuddled silence as it
is treated with several bars of a milk-curdling «atmospheric» intro, then
feebly cheers at the sounds of "you gotta wake up every morning...",
with most of the people probably feeling duped rather than pleasantly
surprised. A less serious misfire is the new glam-rock setting for ʽChainsʼ,
with distorted guitars and fiery solos — the song does not exactly lose its fun
quotient, but the fun does seem cheapened.
If it's any consolation, lead guitar duties are
consistently handled by none other than Slash, who now takes it to the stage
after collaborating with Carole on ʽHold Out For Loveʼ — yes, that is the one
and only song from Colour Of Your Dreams
that made it onto here, with a dutifully extended lead guitar break from the
man, and Carole also encourages him to let his hair down (as if it already
weren't) every time she does a «rocker», which leads to odd results. Then
again, you just might be interested in Slash's take on ʽLocomotionʼ or
ʽJazzmanʼ (ʽJazzmanʼ actually works very well, with inspired solos from all of
the band members, including short, energetic breaks from the bassist and
drummer), because, after all, we're not talking about some completely generic
hair metal guitar player here... aren't we?
I could certainly do without Carole choosing
one of her worst songs ever to open the concert (ʽHard Rock Cafeʼ — no, Ms.
King, not even the presence of Slash legitimizes any part of this as a «hard
rock» show, even if it does kick ass from time to time), and while I have
nothing against backing choirs or
Crosby and Nash, it was hardly necessary to include two versions of ʽYou've Got A Friendʼ, one of them with a young
choir and the other one with two aging hippies. Why not do ʽRaspberry Jamʼ as
an encore instead? Surely her band is capable of building up a beautiful
not-altogether-pop vibe — they do it well enough on ʽJazzmanʼ.
But in the overall context of these 73 minutes
of live performance, that is nitpicking; and as much as these echoes of
Carole's insipid early 1990s style jab and sting the senses from time to time,
I cannot agree with the occasional assessment that on this album, Carole
redoes her classics «in Nineties' fashion». Most of the arrangement details and
accompanying vibes really stay the same, so, if anything, this album works as
proof that if you wanted to go to a Carole King show in 1993, you needn't be
afraid that she'd fuck it up too much. Does it prove anything else? Well, it
does offer hope that any Carole King show, as long as she's alive, will always
be enjoyable to a large degree — actually, I have the Living Room Tour DVD from
2005, and it's even better than this one (no bad songs whatsoever), though
probably not worth a separate review. The only important thing is never to let her remember that it's not
1971 anymore. — you do that, and you're in for a huge embarassment, almost
inevitably.
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