I had the pleasure of getting out for an evening of entertainment last nite. Headed out to catch one of my favorite artists (musician) at a small club within driving distance. In this case the artist was the former songstress for the TV show Ally McBeal, the lovely and talented Ms. Vonda Shepard.
Image from Viewimages.com
I became a fan of Vonda Shepard after catching her work on Ally McBeal and diving a bit further into her body of work. While fans of the TV show are used to her performances of pop standards, she has a library of songs of her own -- including the song that became the theme to the TV show -- that holds up well on it's own.
I've seen her live performances a few times now and never quite know what I'll get to see. Thanks to what she jokingly called her old day job (the TV show), most people that know her music don't know her music and instead know her covers of other songs. Those fans show up at the performances she gives and expect they'll hear those songs and then are confused somewhat when she starts singing about rainy days or Chinatown or just about anything else.
I love most of her songs, but admit that there are some that sound a bit much like others she has done. After a while you may think you are hearing the same songs again, but you'd have to be listening to more than a few of her albums to hear that sort of repitiveness, and that is most definitely not what you would catch if you see a live performance as she does a pretty good job of rotating through both pop favorites and her own music so that the show stays 'fresh.'
My only complaint about the night out is that I wish it would have gone a little longer. At just over 75 minutes (by my count), the end came too quickly. There were still several songs I'd have enjoyed hearing, but eventually the performance must end, especially on an evening when she's doing 2 shows in the same hall. That 75 minutes for the show I caught might not have been long, but by the time I caught the second performance, she'd already been singing and playing (piano, guitar and such) for over an hour and 15 minutes and only got a short break between the two performances.