Mariane Faithfull @ The Forum,Melbourne (5/02/10)

Mon 8th Feb, 2010 in Gig Reviews

The Melbourne fans had rushed for tickets to see what was billed as “An Evening With Marianne Faithfull ” selling out the Forum theatre twice and leading the woman Pitchfork recently dubbed “the Helen Mirren of rock’n’roll” to add a third night. It should have been a triuphant show, a survivor’s victory performance, but it wasn’t to be.

Faithfull’s recent albums have benefited from the patronage of famous friends – Beck, Billy Corgan and Pulp on 2002’s Kissin’ Time; Nick Cave, PJ Harvey, Damon Albarn and Jon Brion on 2005’s Before the Poison; and most recently Rufus Wainwright, Antony, Cat Power and Keith Richards on last year’s Easy Come, Easy Go – but this show sorely lacked their presence as Faithfull wandered through a show with a strange lack of confidence.

With a table holding her props taking centre stage – warm tea, water, towel, lipstick (to be reapplied during the show) and a song book keeping the lyrics close at hand – the show meandered through a collection of uninspired arrangements. Her hired band acted as an aural putty, filling in the cracks that give her voice such an identifiable smoky texture. There was little passion in Faithfull’s voice and denied the support of her famous friends she seemed strangely awkward on stage.

The set was drawn mostly from last year’s double album Easy Come, Easy Go with a trio of Broken English tracks and the classics As Tears Go By and Sister Morphine included to carry the show on past glories. Crazy Love, co-written with Nick Cave, also made the set list – presumably as the mention of Australian music’s favourite expat always brings a cheer from a Melbourne audience.

Opening gamut of Times Square, Down from Dover and The Cranes Wife 3 set the tone, with overly insistent drumming and a backing more suited to a supper club show working against the gravel of Faithfull’s voice. On record her voice reveals the texture of an uncompromising woman, but on stage as a grand dame on the polite nostalgia circuit she’s simply lost. Given space by the band, as the drummer traded flat timekeeping for simple brushwork, Faithfull offered a glimmer of her true voice with the despairing Duke Ellington tune Solitude, most famously performed by Billie Holiday.

There was also a spark of emotional resonance with Easy Come, Easy Go album closer Flandyke Shore. On the album Faithfull is joined for the tune by the McGarrigle sisters, Kate and Anna, and she now dedicates her rendition to Kate, who passed away in January. However any emotion comes more from the sadly prescient lyric “Never to return to England no more” rather than from anything in Faithfull’s performance.

Though her turn in Naked Under Leather may have inspired Black Rebel Motorcycle Club’s name, there’s nothing inspired in her version of their tune Salvation and he awkward shuffle during the instrumental break of The Ballad Of Lucy Jordan erases any memory of Faithfull as a model of rock rebellion.

Perhaps inevitably, Broken English provided the highlight of the evening as its powerful bassline overrode any questions about Faithfull’s lack of voice. Though there was still the glint in her eye as she introduced Randy Newman’s dark In Germany Before the War and a snidely curled lip as she delivered the petulantly coarse lyrics of Why’d Ya Do It with relish to close the show.

Quickly returning for an obligatory encore Faithfull and band offered Morrissey’s Dear God Please Help Me and Sing Me Back Home with Roger Eno (Brian’s brother) taking Keith Richard’s place in a suit spotted by skull and crossbones, but doing nothing else to emulate Keef’s pirate drawl.

Between every tune Faithfull bowed to take the applause generously offered by the sold out crowd, but sadly the faithful were cheering for past glories rather than anything on stage.

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