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Cyndi Lauper: Live…At Last
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When I was growing up as a teenager in Brazil, I remember hearing Girls Just Want To Have Fun, the unstoppable hit from Queens-born Cyndi Lauper that was possibly one of the biggest songs of the summer of 1983.Her visuals (thrift-store chic?) were eye candy for the kind of looks that MTV, which was still a very young media at the time, was looking for - so the videos for Girls got a lot of airplay at the time, making Cyndi an instant star. Other songs would also become big in the next couple of years, such as Money Changes Everything (which was also featured on her Début album, She's So Unusual), Time After Time (remade by none other than the late, great Miles Davis), and True Colors (from the 1986 album of the same name). During the nineties, Cyndi went a bit out of circulation, and we only saw the release of Hat Full of Stars (1993) the dismal Sisters of Avalon (1997) and the obnoxious Merry Christmas - Have a Nice Life (1998). In the following years, she released an independent album (which is now out of circulation) and performed concerts in small venues. Last year, however, Cyndi made a major comeback with the release of At Last, an album of standards produced by Russ Titelman (who has worked with Eric Clapton), which included songs she listened to as a child, as she states in the album's liner notes. The success of the new album prompted the release of a live DVD, Live... At Last, a concert at New York City's Town Hall on March 11, 2004. While her eighties' visuals were replaced with a more conservative look (after all, the thrift store look would look a bit ridiculous on a 51-year-old), her raw energy is still there, and her voice is unaltered after all these years, as I was also able to witness during a recent outdoor concert at City Hall Park in Lower Manhattan. During the concert, some songs from the new album are showcased alongside her greatest hits. Stay has a great Latin vibe, and the band does a great job in reproducing the sound from the studio version. On the minus side, watching Cyndi attempt some tentative salsa steps made me cringe a bit... In Walk on By, she alters the album's arrangement to a more upbeat tempo ("we changed it a bit for the live thing", she said at the City Hall gig), which makes it better than the sadder version featured on the album. The best parts of the concert, however, are her 80s hits. The crowd cheers when the first chords of I Drove All Night (from the 1989 albumA Night to Remember), and that happens again when she performs songs such as All Through The Night and Change Of Heart I thoroughly enjoyed the acoustic, French-inspired treatment she gave to She Bop (from She's So Unusual), and also her lap guitar bit on Time After Time - nice changes from the original all-keyboard arrangements (for both songs) from the 1983 recordings. In an emotional moment, she tells that the song True Colors had been written in homage to a friend of hers who had perished from AIDS a bit earlier - and that the song had become bigger than herself. The song closes with an extended version of Girls Just Want To Have Fun, and she leaves an audience delighted at seeing the singer's return to the spotlight. Cyndi has a great vibe with the crowd - there are often jokes exchanged between her and audience members (unfortunately, we are a little at loss as we can't exactly hear what the people are saying), and each song is introduced in a humorous way. For instance, before Stay, she explains that while she grew up while the "grown-ups" listened to Latin music, her cousin would put on her 45s, and "if you stood right in the middle, this is what it sounded like." Her road band (made up of musicians who played on the album) is also extremely competent. Guitarist Kat Dyson is subdued when necessary, while rocking out when the songs call for it. Her duet with violinist Deni Bonet at the end of Change Of Heart is worth the price of the DVD alone. Keyboardist Steve Gaboury does a fantastic job during the whole show, while drummer Sam Merendino and bassist William Wittman expertly supply their support for the songs. Live... At Last reminded me why I loved Cyndi in the first place: a great songwriter and a flamboyant performer. Enjoy. |
 
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