Your backstage pass to the DFW music scene and beyond.
DALLAS -- When is a concert not a concert?
When it's a musical lecture, like the sort delivered by Natalie Merchant Thursday night at the Winspear Opera House. Although the potential existed for a stuffy evening of academic minutiae, Merchant kept things light. It didn't hurt that, when it came time to sing, her voice -- a deliriously agile, husky, honey-bathed alto with just the right amount of bombast -- sounds as pure and powerful now as it did 20 years ago.
Merchant is touring in support of Leave Your Sleep, a seven-year, $700,000 odyssey that resulted in a double-disc anthology (the singer-songwriter described it, self-deprecatingly, as an "obsessive compulsive labor of love" Thursday). Culled from early-to-mid-20th century British and American poetry and dressed up, via Merchant's own musical compositions, in an array of melodic finery, the 26-track collection is an elegant, fascinating meditation on the mix of emotions stirred by youth.
Wisely, the night was effectively split in two, running a total of two and a half hours. Over the course of nearly 90 minutes, Merchant first picked her way through over half of Sleep, pausing before most songs to provide context and a little background on the poets whose works she'd set to music. Backed by a band that fluctuated between six and eight members, all of whom ably replicated the album's dense textures and range of moods, Merchant whipsawed between whimsy (Bleezer's Ice Cream, Calico Pie) and woe (If No One Ever Marries Me, Spring and Fall: To a Young Child).
Although the stop-start nature of the early going might've fazed less attentive audiences, the Winspear -- in a rarity for Dallas -- was pin-drop silent, appreciative of the new material. That alone was nearly as stunning as the vibrant vocal display onstage. Merchant was having fun, dancing about, gesticulating, and commenting about the brutally hot weather, but didn't cut loose until the evening's second half (there was even an impromptu digression about the late, great Bronco Bowl).
Following a brief break, Merchant returned to the stage for a super-sized encore, sans slide projector and authors' biographies, to ramble through her own, acclaimed back catalog. Stripped down to their acoustic essence, gems like Carnival or Hey Jack Kerouac sparkled anew, as the crowd likewise began to feel more lively, more like concertgoers than students.
What began as an unlikely hybrid between learning and entertainment that, despite its unorthodox nature, was frequently thrilling, soon gave way to one of the year's most assured performances. With or without the words of other scribes tripping from her lips, Natalie Merchant proved to be nothing less than pure poetry in motion.
Setlist
1. The Sleepy Giant
2. The Man in the Wilderness
3. The King of China's Daughter
4. Nursery Rhyme of Innocence and Experience
5. Spring and Fall: To a Young Child
6. Maggie and Milly and Molly and May
7. The Peppery Man
8. The Janitor's Boy
9. Bleezer's Ice Cream
10. The Adventures of Isabel
11. Calico Pie
12. If No One Ever Marries Me
13. The Dancing Bear
14. The Equestrienne
Encore
15. Wonder
16. Carnival
17. Hey Jack Kerouac
18. Break Your Heart
19. City of Angels
20. Gold Rush Brides
21. River
22. The Worst Thing
23. The Letter
24. These Are Days
25. Kind & Generous