Beth Orton Live
By: Steven Mirkin - Daily Variety
August 26th 2002 4:12am
(Mayan Theater; 1,500 capacity; $24.50) Bruised and wary, Beth Orton sings like a romantic conscience, that little voice in the back of your head at the start of every relationship advising caution, a reminder that however good it feels now, odds are that this one, too, will end up in tears. In previous appearances, this knowledge acted like a neurasthenic, giving her a fragile delicacy --- you wanted to give her a hug but were afraid the embrace could break her. But at the Mayan Theater, Orton's English Rose was grafted onto hardy rootstock, combining her prudence with a headstrong resolve that urged you on. If you don't take this leap, she now councils, you'll regret it forever. This newfound confidence comes across with an endearing earthiness. If her banter still was a coy jumble of pauses and feints, she could tell a joke that was a bawdy variation of the old question "which came first, the chicken or the egg." And when her crew surprised her by lowering the Mayan's giant disco ball, she could laugh at herself, even though, with its slow revolution, it was an amazingly stately mirror ball. Her nearly two-hour show had the arc of a romantic encounter. Early songs such as "Paris Train" were sly and tentative, with Orton, dressed in black, hiding behind her hair and guitar. But when the guitar came down, she was a different woman --- holding the mic stand, shrouded in smoke, lost in her own reverie. Tunes such as the swirling New Order-esque post punk of "Daybreaker" and the skewed, jazzy Tim Buckley-styled "God Song" had a erotic charge; set reached its climax with a revamped version of "Carmella." On the album, it's a cautionary shuffle, but live, driven by Scott Read's insistent piano, it was turned into a gritty roadhouse rocker. Orton returned to the stage accompanied by just guitar and strings, and "Concrete Sky" and "This One's Gonna Bruise" basked in the blissful ache of the afterglow. Returning for another encore, the half-cocked, joyous "Best Bit," she joked that the band was more enthusiastic than the crowd, and she was up for a second round. Orton was initially lumped in the electronic music category (and "Daybreaker," her new Astralwerks album, includes collaborations with the Chemical Brothers, William Orbit and Everything But the Girl's Ben Watt). But her performance made it clear that Orton should be considered in the company of expansive, visionary folk such as Van Morrison, Sandy Denny and Nick Drake and cosmic country acts such as Emmylou Harris and Jimmy Dale Gilmore. Brooklyn's Hem opened the show with a set of moody, luxuriant melancholia. Performing without a rhythm section, it was hard pressed to re-create the druggy trance of the band's album "Rabbit Songs" (Waveland), but its frayed, elegant and deeply echoed chamber-country formed an intriguing cushion for Sally Ellyson's plummy vocals.
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