LENNY KRAVITZ
I was raised on Lenny Kravitz. When I try to remember the first song that I ever saw on MTV, back when MTV was just the one channel, I think of Are You Gonna Go My Way by Kravitz. I remember the lights and the female drummer. I think of the dreads. And it is not at all surprising that I think of that riff. He was always one of those acts that I'd love to see based purely on my youth, but I only bought tickets for this show due to my mum desperately wanting to see him. At £40.20 each ticket after fees I certainly wouldn't have bought tickets if it weren't for her. I was even less enthused when I found out that there would be no support. All of that money for just one man, and what turned out to be a one hour and forty-five minute set.
It wasn't really worth it. He has produced many albums each crammed with a ton of filler and the odd anthemic single. With this show destined to be used to road-test his latest album, Love Revolution, live, I understood that we would probably get half hits and half shite. Something that I did not expect however was Lenny Kravitz to bring with him his merry bunch of talented session musicians (including a brass section) and then masquerade as the new James Brown, extending his new songs into jazz-funk odysseys that were more just odd. The one saving grace was his ability to pull out a hit at just the right moment to remind me that he can write them, and with songs like Mr Cab Driver, Again and Fly Away unleashed he managed to appease me.
Well until Let Love Rule that is. Having kept the older songs to their original length previously, he decided to extend this one by continually repeating the title lyric, before he began preaching unity, brotherhood, Christianity and a need for a 'Love Revolution' to the crowd. He then asked for people to join him on stage for a mass dance along. The whole thing was painful. Looking over the faces of the crowd you could see that his search for community had been successful, it just meant that everyone was united in alienating his warmth with beautiful British cynicism. Some things are best left to the past it seems.
http://www.myspace.com/lennykravitz
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment