Last night I schlepped my ass over to the Highline Ballroom again for the KT Tunstall concert. You will kindly recall that I went there about a month ago for a Pipettes concert. It's a nice space. Clean, friendly, well-ventilated, neat balcony area, overpriced bar, fun colored lights. As far as New York performance spaces go, this is one of them.
As far as KT goes, well... First of all, she was late. An hour late, a whole hour! And the Ballroom was playing some pretty shitty music while we stood there. Luckily, the boy to my right was super cute and all alone, so I mostly passed the time daydreaming about inviting him over to stand with me. I'm not sure who's fault it was that everything was behind, but considering some guy was still screwing around with microphones and guitars 40 minutes after the show was supposed to have started, I'm going to assume it was somebody's.
Then KT got on stage, sang some songs, left, came back, sang some more songs, and left again.
And that's really all there is to say. It was a solid set. The songs from her upcoming album are entertaining and kind of taking her in a new direction. One of them even made me want more beer.... y'know, instead of a nonfat latte. So that's on the list. The first single from the album is the best one, but I can't remember what it's called. Oh, and she had a thousand more musicians behind her than I expected. A SEXY guitarist, a drummer, a keyboard/trumpet/garbage-lid guy, two girl backup singers I wouldn't have noticed if they weren't introduced, and a bass/cello guy. I was nervous she would sound... I dunno... overdone... but it worked!
The concert felt short, probably because there was no opening act. I was also in a sort of zone and just went with it. Anyway, I was pleased. There's my million-dollar review.
Now, a note about taking pictures at concerts and how impossible it is: It's impossible! Well, for me. I have a regular person cheap camera, no photographer skillz, no idea what the camera functions do, and a serious aversion to using a flash because it a) flattens images and makes them all fake and b) negates all the cool colored stage lights. So I was a little bit back from the stage playing with settings, zooming in, and doing my best. I took 116 pictures. I was able to salvage 25 of them in Photoshop, and they're still all blurry and grainy, but some of them have bright colors, so I'm fine with it. I guess. Here's a selection. You decide:
If you want to see the rest, here's the link to the set. The thumbnails make them look awesome, it's the actual-sized versions that have problems. I bet with a better camera and maybe a class I'd be a fab photographer. Anyone got $1,000?
Hey, I wonder if that guy I linked to last time when he reviewed the Pipettes concert was at this one....checking.... He was! Ok, read his review at Music Snobbery too because he knows actual things about music and though some of his pictures may SEEM the same as mine, they have actual quality in them. Oh, and based on the angle of these shots and recognizing him from the Pipettes concert (it's easy to tell because he has a nice camera), I totally know who this guy is and he doesn't know me. I feel like a perv.