Review: Regina Spektor at the Uptown

Photo courtesy of ReginaSpektor.com.

A petite Moscow-born pianist sat primly at a grand piano Sunday evening while a rapt audience hung on every note. In spite of the formal curtsy at the conclusion of the 80-minute performance, this was no ordinary piano recital.

Regina Spektor's sold-out concert was more like an art-school hootenanny. With only a piano, an electric guitar and a single drumstick at her disposal, the rising star enchanted a capacity crowd of approximately 2,100 at the Uptown Theater.

The solo context showcased Spektor's idiosyncratic style to marvelous effect. While the 27-year-old's impeccable work on piano betrays her classical training, it was Spektor's disarmingly versatile voice that kept her rabid fans spellbound. She can evoke jazz chanteuse Anita O'Day one moment and emit glass-breaking shrieks the next. She also punctuates her songs with clicks, grunts, groans and sighs.

Such gimmicks can sound contrived on Spektor's recordings. Yet Spektor is such a thoroughly charming performer that these mannerisms became endearing.  It allowed her to transform "Fidelity" and "Better," her most blatant pop overtures, into stark displays of soulfulness.

Many of Spektor's songs seem like spontaneous flights of fancy. "That Time," one of a couple songs on which she strummed a guitar, is gleefully primitive. Jack Dishel, who resembled an adenoidal Leonard Cohen in his 30-minute opening set under the stage name Only Son, provided beat box percussion on the goofy "Hotel Song." It dissolved into a series of rude noises.

Spektor can quickly skip from the profane to the delicate. Beneath the absurd non sequiturs in "Summer In the City" lie oceans of heartbreak. Yet nothing was better than her rapturously beautiful reading of "Samson." It was a spectacularly convincing finale from a performer with a seemingly unlimited reservoir of talent.

| Bill Brownlee, Special to The Star


Setlist: Ain't No Cover; On the Radio; Sailor Song; The Flowers; The Wallet; Fidelity; Music Box; Baby Jesus; One More Time With Feeling; Poor Little Rich Boy; Bobbing For Apples; That Time; Apres Moi; Summer In the City; Human of the Year; Ghost of Corporate Future; Real Love (John Lennon cover); Us; Uh-merica; Better;
Hotel Song (with Only Son); Samson.

Comments

[languagehat]

This really was a very solid show. Her voice was amazing and her piano was mixed really well and sounded clear and rich in the balcony where I sat.

I wasn't sure about the opening act. I understand the economics of touring with a band, but how did other folks feel about him using an iPod with pre-recorded backing tracks? Did it seem like cheating to you or was it a creative use of new technology?

[Gary]

When I saw Tori Amos ("Under the Pink" era) years ago she played to tapes. I would have preferred a backing band but she's still at it (with a backing band now).

[RaiderHawk]

Given the alternative -- no backup, no percussion -- give me taped music any time. Or a monkey beating a tin can.

[Brad]

As far as the IPOD, I turned to my friend and told him, "Why does this somehow remind me of Milli Vanilli?" Even when he got to a climax of one of his songs, it wasn't the guitar part he was playing THEN that was very climactic. I wasn't a big fan.

[Jenson]

I thought Only Son was fine... he made the iPod thing cute. He had personality. He should have played longer though because the time between him and Regina was way too long and had many of us in the audience feeling quite impatient.

But as for Regina-- she was so awesome! Her voice was amazing. She seemed humble... yet she had this really create personality. Great show... I'm not so sure about Uptown as a good concert venue. They wouldn't let you out of the side exits (Is this against fire code to not let people use exits?) and someone should have emceed or came on the stage to calm us impatient folks down. I'm not sure who was playing in the smoking lounge when we came in but she was good too. Does anyone know who she is?

In summary, the line around the block was well worth the wait!