With no Dutch concert scheduled for this, the first leg of his 2010 tour, I drove the 2½ hours to Brussels yesterday to see Brendan Perry perform in the Orangerie hall of the Botanique.
What a joy it was to see the man perform live again as a solo artist after a hiatus of more than 10 years.
To my surprise, the venue was seated, but the seating was unassigned. I could still have had the front row if I’d wanted it, but I instead chose to sit five rows back and off to the left, in the knowledge that the sound would be much better there.
The front of the stage had only floor monitors and those were obviously pointing the wrong way, so the sound towards the centre of the first few rows would have been quite a bit inferior to that heard from my vantage point. In any case, I still had an excellent view from the fifth row.
Brendan came on early, at about 20:20. Apparently, this was to comply with the local curfew governing music events.
The audience were riveted to their seats for the entire show. You could have heard a pin drop between songs.
Brendan played a handful of his favourite Dead Can Dance songs, several songs from his forthcoming album, Ark (out in June), a Tim Buckley cover, a song from his collaboration with Piano Magic on their Ovations album, and a couple of completely new songs. The set was particularly interesting, because much of it remains unreleased at present. Ark should have been on sale by now, but has experienced production delays.
Brendan’s voice sounded richer and fuller than ever. Like a good wine, he improves with the years. The only tragedy is that the man doesn’t release material and tour more frequently. Once a decade is simply not enough.
The set was too short, but that was always going to be the case. I left feeling elated, which is just as well, because I had to miss Yeasayer in Amsterdam to go and see Mr. Perry in Brussels. There’s no doubt in my mind that I made the right decision, much as I would have liked to see Yeasayer for the first time.
The recording of the concert is available on DIME. The sound quality is excellent, one of the very best I’ve ever produced.
Hi Ian, Brendan is great. I remember when in 2005 you flew from Us to Europe to attend DCD concert and you flew again from Europe to Us to watch them again.
Yes, I racked up quite a few kilometres that year to see Dead Can Dance.
I’ll be flying to Ireland at the end of May to see Brendan in Dublin, Cork and Galway. Needless to say, I’m looking forward to that.