As much as I love motion pictures, there’s something about a commanding live performance, of any type, that can trump that affection with its immediacy, its give-and-take relationship, its “I was there” kind of moment.
I was there July 8 when k.d. lang played the Brady Theater. Oh, Lyle Lovett was there too, as the headliner, but it wasn’t the same feeling, and I think anybody who was there could tell you what I mean.
k.d. gave a vocal performance that soared, despaired, swelled and held your focus unlike anything I’d seen in years.
She has so many songs in which she produces a line, and then there’s a pause, a brief silence, in which one normally hears a cough from the balcony, a seat-back creak a couple rows back, the devil’s tool (some call it a cell phone) announcing its presence.
There was nothing, something less than silence, just rapt attention. This was a mature audience, and I think we all appreciated the fact that there just aren’t many voices like hers on this earth.
k.d. did an hour when I wish she’d done three, 10 songs when I wish she’d performed the entire “Ingenue” album and moved on from there.
This was her first performance here, she informed, barefoot and seeming almost giddy at times to find a Tulsa audience more welcoming than she expected.
“Come home with me,” one man howled, and then we all howled, because k.d. swings, just not that way. But on this night, anything seemed possible.
I was there the night k.d. lang came to Tulsa.
