Review: k.d. lang makes the amazing seem effortless in Dallas

Dallas When talking about k.d. lang, the superlatives tend to run dry before long.

After all, you can only be gobsmacked and stunned and reeling and overwhelmed ... so on and so forth ... for so long before it starts to sound like you're just throwing out adjectives in lieu of forming a concrete opinion.

And yet.

The Grammy-winning Canadian chanteuse demonstrated, for a feisty audience at the Meyerson, just how much fun she's having, but never stinted on vocal dramatics that earned her a series of standing ovations. Quite animated (lang laid a kiss on the hand of an audience member during Summer Fling, the night's second number) and moving deftly from the wryly comic to the piercingly romantic, the singer-songwriter simply made brilliance appear as easy as drawing a breath.

Touring in support of her latest LP, Sing It Loud, with her quintet dubbed the Siss Boom Bang (because ... well, why not?), lang took care to render her classics in such a fashion as to delight long-time fans as well as keep herself sane (surely, by now, she's got to be sick of singing the main set closer, Constant Craving). There was, of course, the obligatory take on Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah (as much as a staple for lang as it is Cohen, at this point), which was its usual, show-stopping display.

There would be fewer wars, more loving relationships and less intransigence in Washington D.C. if everyone would simply see lang perform this song live once. It's a tonic for the soul.

For many artists, such a showing would be the capstone, the evening's grand finale. It's a mark of skill (or, more likely, serious huevos) that lang positioned Hallelujah as the set list's midpoint. (Also worth noting: lang and the Siss Boom Bang rendered the Talking Heads' Heaven as a lovely, slow-smoked country ballad.) Pulling from Loud and the rest of her extensive catalog, lang played it free and easy throughout, grinning often and remarking at one point: "For the next two hours, you're all free to fly that flag! I don't care what kind of freak you are!"

Call it a genuine big-tent philosophy, one which plays right into lang's own refusal for easy, pat musical categorization. She roams freely across many genres, pulling liberally from each -- jazz, country, folk, pop, blues, even a little gospel -- and making every one indelibly her own.

Opener Teddy Thompson, the singing/songwriting offspring of folk-rockers Richard and Linda Thompson, appeared to be racking up new fans with each successive song in his 45-minute set. Rightly so -- the British troubadour has a way with words and melodies, not to mention a deliciously dry sense of humor.

Armed with just an acoustic guitar, a melancholy streak as deep as it was wide and a quiver full of quips (his observations about the white-knuckle speed employed by Dallas drivers were wickedly amusing), Thompson doled out selections from his most recent LP, 2010's Bella, as well as selections from previous records like A Piece of What You Need (the utterly disarming In My Arms). Some smart booking agent (at say, the Kessler or the Granada) should really think about bringing him back for a headlining performance.