This was my second visit to the concrete monstrosity that is the Barbican centre. Tickets were excellent – front row, smack bang in the centre of the stage.
LA took the stage bang on time and proceeded with the act. She started with, quite appropriately, a violin-based soundscape. Being an equipment freak, I noticed that she was used a Line 6 DL4…a good choice.
Anyway, the evening progressed. This was not your normal LA show. This was her “unplugged” tour in so much as that she wasn’t relying on a backup band or a multimedia presentation. It was just her, a keyboard, a violin and mixer/FX.
She proceeded to tell stories based around the concept of happiness, while tinkling on a the keyboard to create a swash of background audio colour. Many of the stories I had heard before…mainly because I’ve listened to all her albums…but some of these stories were expanded or told slightly differently, so it was still an engaging 1 hour 45 minutes.
It’s not like reviewing a concert where you can say, “Oh they played this song or that song”…no songs were involved, it was all storytelling. So all I can say is that she started off with an apochryphal tale of a diver scooped up while diving in the sea by helicopters quenching a Californian forest fire, her time at a Amish farm, her time camping with a bunch of fruit loops, her time working in McDonalds, her time in hospital as a child, etc…etc…
Being in the front row, and directly in the eyeline of LA, it was quite disconcerting to have her staring down at us all evening. In fact, she played exclusively to the front row and even the missus remarked how there was lots of eye contact going on. I’ve never had this happen when seeing a performance before. At the end, after her third round applause, she stared right down at me and winked. All I could do was do the first thing that came to me and that was wink right back at her!
A wonderful evening…and Laurie Anderson will remain one of my favourite performers.

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