Classic Pop - UK (2019-11)

LIVE & EVENTS

Xxxxxx

TANITA TIKARAM

HEIMATHAFEN, BERLIN

5 OCTOBER

★★★★

THE UNDERSTATED SINGER-

SONGWRITER REMODELS HER BACK

CATALOGUE FOR AN ENTRANCED

CROWD IN BERLIN

I

f you want to know how big

Tanita Tikaram once was in

Germany, visit one of the

capital’s fl ea markets, where

you’ll fi nd 1988’s Ancient Heart

selling in the same quantities as

Frampton Comes Alive in

America. People haven’t

abandoned it, though: after all, it

spent 48 weeks in the country’s

charts, 12 at No.1. They’ve

instead ‘upgraded’ to CD, then

on to streaming. Just look at the

crowd this evening: all Tikaram

has to do is walk on stage to

rouse their noisy fervour.

However, Tikaram isn’t given

to rousing. She’s a sensible type

who doesn’t put on a show so

much as perform serious songs

seriously. Her only concession to

showwomanship is starting with

a band member dressed like an

archangel in the auditorium,

wielding a violin like a weapon.

Dressed in a bold red outfi t

that’s part trouser suit, part

jumpsuit, she spends some of the

show playing songs written, she

politely reminds us, “when I was

a little girl”. Each, though, is

given a remodelling by an

accomplished band whose

confi guration – accordion, violin,

At the heart of Tikaram’s

appeal, of course, is her voice. A

deep, husky sound, it sometimes

threatens to fall short of the notes

for which she’s striving – as on He

Likes The Sun, also from Ancient

Heart – yet somehow never does.

Unmistakable from the fi rst note, it

sounds like silk, but that’s torn silk,

dark silk, lived-in silk. Admittedly,

she struggles a little projecting

Twist In My Sobriety’s lowest

notes but the song culminates with

a furious fi nish matched by the

crowd’s elation.

Interestingly, she also proves

herself a valuable interpreter of

other people’s material: Love Isn’t

A Right – written by Nick Drake’s

mother, Molly – receives an

arrangement one might have

heard in Weimar Republic Berlin,

while Wild Is The Wind displays

enviable poise and restraint;

Marlene Dietrich’s Falling In Love

Again ends with the utterly

beautiful sound of the crowd

singing its fi nal verse in German.

Her own songs are,

admittedly, largely low-key –

excepting, of course, a rowdy

Good Tradition – but if she’s

never quite revelatory, she’s

always satisfying, as German

fl ea markets know well. WW

saxophone and drums – would

suit a New York arts venue.

Additionally, To Drink The

Rainbow is lent a Cajun feel by

the squeezebox, while

Wonderful Shadow lifts the

mood, a jaunty sax adding to

the warm arrangements. She sets

in motion a slow, slinky groove

from behind the piano on Lovers

In The City, while there’s a

hypnotic, krautrock feel to I Don’t

Want To Lose At Love’s violin

work, its dreamy chorus

bolstered by the drummer’s

backing vocals. Furthermore,

thanks to the same drummer’s

synth work, Heavy Pressure

almost sounds like Alison Moyet.

MORTEN HARKET

LITTERATURHUSET,

BERGEN, NORWAY

27 SEPTEMBER

★

As so often, Morten Harket is

centre stage again, but this time

he looks different to the man we

know as A-ha’s singer. For

starters, he’s slumped in a chair,

and the two men either side of

him are not Paul Waaktaar-

Savoy and Magne Furuholmen,

but Audun Vinger, a veteran

Norwegian journalist, and Ørjan

Nilsson, who’s publishing a new,

sadly Norwegian-only book

about the dream-voiced

frontman’s wilderness years.

That’s the thing about Harket.

He’s at Bergen’s Vill Vill Vest

conference to discuss A-ha’s

1993-98 hiatus, which found him

desperate for space after the

madness of their early albums.

“We weren’t really in our centre

anymore,” he says, recalling his

arrival on stage in Rio in 1991 to

an audience of 198,000.

“Where am I in all of this?”

Sometimes, however, it’s his

audience who wonder. To be

fair, he’s speaking in English, a

second language, but, though

Vinger introduces him as “a

living poet”, his mixing of

metaphors can be baffl ing.

Embarking on spiralling

tangents whose clarity is often in

inverse proportion to the number

of words used doesn’t help,

either. We may learn how he

ended up admirably

championing the cause of East

Timor after a human rights

lawyer knocked uninvited on his

door at Monte Carlo’s Hôtel

Hermitage, but we’re also treated

to opaque insights like,

“Everything here in our reality

has something in common: it’s

something else. But it seems to

have come out of nothing.”

To be fair, there are multiple

moments of insight. “Fame is like

this,” he says, tugging Vinger’s

sleeve, then refusing to let go. “It

never stops.” When an audience

member requests advice for

young bands, he replies simply,

“Grow older!”

For A-ha fans, though, the

biggest takeaway is that the

band have so much material

already that they’re not writing

new songs. Harket himself,

however, remains an enigma, a

thoughtful, curious, but likeable

fi gure whose personal

philosophies are perhaps better

communicated in song. WW

SETLIST

(^1) Cathedral Song
(^2) To Drink The Rainbow
(^3) Back In Your Arms
(^4) He Likes The Sun
(^5) Rock‘n’Roll
(^6) I Don’t Want To Lose
At Love
(^7) Lovers In The City
(^8) Liar
(^9) Wonderful Shadow
(^10) Twist In My Sobriety
(^11) Only The Ones We Love
(^12) Good Tradition
(^13) The Way You Move
(^14) Heavy Pressure
(^15) Wild Is The Wind
Encore
(^16) Falling In Love Again
(^17) Maintenant