Keep Your Courage Tour
Saturday 11th November 2023
Bath Forum
SET LIST:
Lulu
Nursery Rhyme of Innocence and Experience
The Worst Thing
Motherland
The Man In The Wilderness
Narcissus
Ladybird
Break Your Heart
Big Girls
Come on Aphrodite
Wonder
INTERVAL
Frozen Charlotte
Ophelia
Giving Up Everything
King of May
Beloved Wife
The Feast of St. Valentine
Sister Tilly
Life Is Sweet
ENCORE
Carnival
These Are Days
Surrender (impromptu, partial)
Eye of The Storm
Kind and Generous
The End
BAND
I can never hear the names in band intros. It’s the same with every artiste. Nor do they list current bands online.
Natalie Merchant – vocals
Lydia – second vocals
– piano / accordion
– double bass / bass guitar
– guitars
– drums
– cello
– viola
– violin
– violin
What a show! It started a couple of minutes after eight o’clock. There was an interval, but the auditorium lights went back on at 11.23. There was a full three hours flat-out on stage, or twice the length of Norah Jones’ show the night before with no support act. I wondered at the lack of tour posters then realized, Doh!, the tour sold out instantly. So why print posters? When you read about her afflictions of the last few years, it’s remarkable to see such a massively energetic show with her full voice.
Bath Forum’s timing policy is beyond weird. Our tickets said ‘Start: 6.30.’ So this is all reserved seating. We had learned the night before and looked it up online. Box Office opens 6.30. Doors open at 7.00. (than in fact, Inner doors open around 7.15) Concert starts 8. Any other venue would simply but ‘8 pm’ on the tickets. We were eating in a restaurant before and the server asked if we were going anywhere interesting. Yes, Natalie Merchant. ‘Oh, that party of six that just left are going too. They were really surprised because it starts at 6.30.’ If only we’d heard that, we could have told them. They’d set out before six for a five minute walk. A Bath local said the Forum was always like that. The thing is, with someone like Natalie Merchant it’s NOT a local audience. We had come from Poole. The people next to us had come from Cardiff. So much for ‘Hello, Bath! You’re a wonderful audience!’ We travelling fans do not know the vagaries and strange timings of Bath Forum.
The appeal is the art deco interior and the fact that as with Norah Jones, American artistes REALLY love being in Bath.
The set list was taken from setlist.com. I hadn’t made detailed notes, and was just entranced. After the first song she said she’d done the next in Dublin, and she named the writers. In the interval, on my way to the (inadequate) Forum toilets, I could see the set sheet by the lighting desk. Ah, I thought, take a photo. It’s easier than making notes.
It says set list, and it’s pretty close, but Frozen Charlotte wasn’t performed there and Beloved Wife was also performed in Set Two.13 is in capitals: ‘Billy- Birds and Ships’ which refers to the song she has done with Billy Bragg & Wilco, Birds and Ships. That was done on 3rd November at London Palladium with Billy Bragg guesting, so the set list was left over from there.
The sound is impeccable, and like Norah Jones, everyone is playing far more quietly and subtly nowadays. Having a four piece string section means a lot of mics. The guitar amp was a small square Orange one, mic’d into the PA. They had trouble with it in the second half, and the technician spent two songs kneeling down with a screwdriver. Interesting. Even in 1970, we simply had a spare set up ready to go, but of course those were valve (tube) amps and they did blow. On this night, they also had two bursts of feedback whine that they had to stop to correct. Still when it was all working it was beautiful. We were seated right to one side (stage right / auditorium left) near the front in Row C, and I’d feared a poor sound from that position, but no, it was excellent.
It opened with Lulu, her tribute to silent star Louise Brooks. A Hollywood theme All that silver flickering grace… fascinating for me because we have tickets for Sunset Boulevard next weekend. It’s one where a projection screen would be great. The Unthanks have done that.
The online Lulu video of Louise Brooks in Pandora’s Box is beautifully done … Lulu is the character Louise Brooks plays in the film. It’s from my favourite album, Natalie Merchant from 2014. I wonder if her trademark expressive dancing and hand gestures owe something to Louise Brooks.
The next one definitely was Nursery Rhyme of Innocence and Experience from Leave Your Sleep. Does she ever do Equestrienne live? It’s the next track and my favourite on the album. Was there another one in between there from Ireland? I don’t think so, I think it was a half-heard intro.
The Worst Thing and Motherland both come from the 2001 album, Motherland. The Worst Thing is melancholy so early in the show, but it highlights guitar and the string section. She did an intro to Motherland, a song which featured accordion on the original too (played by Van Dyke Parks). Accordion is used a great deal, and it fits the “European” feel of the strings. A similar mood runs through both songs.
The Man In The Wilderness goes back to Leave Your Sleep and these early songs maintain a pace and mood.
Narcissus is the first offering from the recent album Keep Your Courage which prompts a mild promo. It was on sale in the lobby on CD and vinyl. My guess is that virtually all of us there on the night had both. It’s a good idea to have )say) a vinyl single with a new B-side, or a live album not on amazon on these tours. The calm contemplative mood continues, but then the end of Narcissus ups the mood and rhythm. The song forms a bridge into a change of feeling.
The set lists have shifted but there is definitely a division into areas. The first section is very ‘solo Natalie Merchant with strings’ but once she brings on Lydia, her co-singer for Ladybird, we are going into the powerful “soul” singer stage, made obvious when Simi Stone was duetting on the original. That builds to the interval. The first four tracks on Natalie Merchant are a powerful statement: Ladybird, then Maggie Said, Texas, Go Down Moses. Four songs in my favourite ten, but tonight I’m satisfied with just the one. After all there is so much more to hear. The girl group backing is a challenge for one singer (there are three on the studio recording), but Lydia (?) carries it off. It’s always been such a tonal contrast to Natalie’s rich and powerful voice. The echo effect is marvellous. I’m aware that like the best of Dylan, Cohen and Simon it’s a great one in the car at night … I keep awake checking that I’m word perfect on the lyric. I play the songs as I write this, and here came a pause, because as ever I had to listen to Ladybird twice. When are you going to fly away … leads into what I think of as the’Sgt Pepper’ instrumental ending. This band got an extra burst of applause as they finished. It’s extraordinary and triumphant playing. Natalie was applauding her band. Was it here that she announced they had 160 years of musical training between them? I’m not going to try and divvy that up, though violinists generally start early.
Break Your Heart comes next. That’s from the Ophelia album. The string intro soars and we didn’t even miss the trumpet. Accordion does it. A thought comes … The Unthanks often tour with a string quartet plus trumpet. But a horn player wouldn’t have enough to do elsewhere.
Big Girls opens the new album, so we are into a song designed for two vocalists alternating. Her co-singer is really, really good.
As on the album, it goes into Come On Aphrodite, which was the virtual single and video from Keep Your Courage. It’s the stand-out for me and was so instantly. It’s definitely a song perfect for live performance with the two voices, and again they can carry it through without the stunning horns on the studio original. This song builds and builds excitement.
Wonder takes us to the end of the set, the first one from Tiger Lily. Or if you prefer from Paradise Is Here: The New Tiger Lily Recordings. Right from the guitar intro, we’re in the most rock song selection yet. It’s a good set ender, leaving us on a high note. ‘Intermission!’ she calls.
The queue for the ladies took longer than the twenty minute interval. Natalie is famously unsympathetic to latecomers, but not here. There were women returning for the first few minutes of the second set. Poor facilities really is the downside of this venue. (Come to Poole next time … there must be ten times as many loos with the theatre, concert hall, studio and cinema all having them).
Then we are into what you may call the obituary set. At other concerts, River comes here, which would add another reference, She has changed from pink and plum to a black dress with a scarlet coat. In both cases the pleated skirts are designed to be ‘swirling skirts.’ The songs have a unifying feel, one after the other.
Here it’s Frozen Charlotte, which equally sets the ‘obit.’ mood (and may be a better song.) I want you to remember me that way … will you wait for me.
Ophelia … another title track. I could subject you to a several pages long article on this song. The Ophelia album gets six songs in this set, and they’re six out of the first seven tracks too. I love the way the song weaves in and out of the Hamlet story. ‘Let us speak of country matters’ – Curvaceous thighs, vivacious eyes but then she was a bride of God, a novice Carmelite, in sister cells the cloister bells tolled on her wedding night. ‘Get thee to a nunnery.’ But then she was a bluestocking suffragette Who remedied society between her cigarettes. She is mistress to a Vegas gambling man, a Mafia courtesan, a circus queen, the female cannonball … as on the rear sleeve of the album.
Then back to the Hamlet theme:
Ophelia’s mind went wandering
You’d wonder where she’d gone
Through secret doors, down corridors
She’d wander them alone
It’s a superb, entrancing lyric. It’s a privilege to hear her sing it live (and its another one where I’m good on the lyrics!)
Giving Up Everything is from the 2014 album. The official video has her putting a mask on. A haunting song, spiritual, Buddhist? I don’t know. Giving up everything, I mercy-killed my craving and at the end she virtually quotes Van Morrison:
No longer slave, not chained to it
No gate, no guard, no keeper
No guru, master, teacher
I’ve said it’s the obit set. The introduction to King of May was fascinating. She traced reading Jack Kerouac, and going on to read his wife’s book; Joan Haverty’s Nobody’s Wife: The Smart Aleck and The King of The Beats. I hadn’t known that French-Canadian was his first language, and that his prose style was affected by English being his second language. That led on to her meeting Allen Ginsberg, and King of May is his obituary song, sung by her at two memorials. She finished the song by reading Ginsberg, I assume from the original Kraj Majales (King of May).
And I am the King of May, which is the power of sexual youth,
and I am the King of May, which is long hair of Adam and Beard of my
own body
and I am the King of May, which is Kraj Majales in the Czechoslovakian
tongue,
and I am the King of May, which is old Human poesy, and 100,000 people
chose my name,
and I am the King of May, and in a few minutes I will land at London
Airport,
and I am the King of May, naturally, for I am of Slavic parentage and a
Buddhist Jew
For me it’s one of her greatest songs, one I play often.
There is a thematic link here, because then it’s Beloved Wife from Tiger Lily. Apparently she was writing from her father’s viewpoint on the death of her mother. It is an incredibly moving piece on record, even more so live.
The Feast of St. Valentine is from Keep Your Courage, as is the next song Sister Tilley. Remember the image on the album cover is Joan of Arc. The Feast of St Valentine echoes the title Keep Your Courage and ends keep your courage, keep your faith, so in a way another title track.
This is a meditation. Sister Tilly is a further memorial or obituary / tribute: I just can’t believe that you’ve gone. She dedicates it to Joan Didion, and it’s a homage to powerful women who inspired her. The lilting melody is one of her classics. For my age group, a tribute to a now elderly woman, remembering her Chelsea girl days and pashmina shawls and moonflower eyes is especially touching. Natalie’s sixteen years younger than me, so she is (in the words of Pete Townsend) ‘talking about my generation.’ Look on YouTube. It’s another example of how good her official videos are.
It’s been a gorgeously harrowing set, if you see what I mean. So we’re back to the Ophelia album and Life Is Sweet. She’d talked about the song in 2005:
A while back ago, I decided I was going to write a song for all the toll booth operators and supermarket cashiers in the country because I felt that the job probably required a lot of self-restraint and probably quite a bit of day dreaming because it’s so confining and repetitious and there’s a lot of isolation involved too. I thought it would take a lot of courage every morning to get up and go do a job like that. And I wanted to give those people a song that would help them escape where they were if they felt like escaping. That was my original mission but in time the song ‘Life Is Sweet’ started to take on a more broad and evangelistic tone. And I decided that I would kind of blend the spirits of Allen Ginsberg and Judy Garland somehow. You could have laughed at that, but I was serious about that.
It starts quietly and lifts. Her dancing as through the night is uplifting and she’s barely going to stop dancing for the next half hour.
Before that last song, Life Is Sweet, she encouraged us to come down to the front. Well, from Row C on the side aisle that was really easy and we got to stand literally leaning on the stage, far stage right. The last time I had that position was Jimmy Cliff and it was incredibly loud, but here it was still crystal clear all round. Also, everyone now started taking photos and videos. She didn’t seem to mind – the ban is because of breaking concentration in the main part of the show. Here is different. There was a false start, and she indicated a guy near us filming it, and she said with a smile, ‘You fuck up, and 50,000 people see it on the internet.’
Finally, we get the raucous terrific encore set … and in Bath it was a set of its own. It starts out with Carnival, from Tiger Lily, and a hit single and a frequent finishing song for her. Somehow the spirit of the night lifts, catharsis after the series of such emotional songs. The string quartet have not come back on, so we hae a straight rock group sound.
She does These Are Days, the greatest hit by her old band, 10,000 Maniacs. It’s a long version with total energy, moving from side to side of the stage, we were leaning on the front, so we were within 3 or 4 feet of her at times.
She seems lifted by it. Someone calls out, and she starts singing Surrender, the Cheap Trick song. Unplanned, unaccompanied … it’s vey much a Judy Collins moment. On her shows, she mentions a song, she has to sing a bit of it. I’d say we got mre than a minute and the bass and drums are the first to join in behind her.
Eye of The Storm follows, again from Keep Your Courage, and the string quartet are back on, I think here. She said it’s about a past relationship, and it’s strong.
Then she calls out for ideas. Someone calls out These Are Days, and for most of us she could do it as many times as she likes. She asks, ‘Were you in the bathroom? We just did it for ten minutes.’ The mood is great. Then someone calls Kind and Generous, natural closer if ever there was one, and she’s into it with a natural singalong too.
It isn’t the last song though. She talks about conflict, and national anthems, and her idea of a peace anthem. She holds up a scarf with a peace sign. It can only be The End. I’ve realized as I write this that the last two songs on the 2014 album are Lulu, which started the evening nearly three and a half hours ago, and The End which finishes it. I look at my phone 11.24. The interval was about fifteen minutes, so we had over three hours. It was an incredible show, one of the best I’ve ever seen by anyone.
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