Friday, September 23, 2005

Dead Can Dance

I went to go and see DCD last night in Oakland. It was so beautiful... even though they did not play my favorite song (Cantara) it was a magical and religious experience for me. Lisa Gerrard's voice, as always, is incredible and flawless... and Brenden Perry is nothing short of amazing. I probably could have done with a few less of Lisa's very slow droning solos, though beautiful, were beginning to trance me out to the point of sleep at times. Her final song, The Hymn for the Fallen was, I felt, an odd choice for a final piece, but hauntingly beautiful nonetheless. For those interested, you can read a recent interview that the SF Chronicle did with here here.

I have wanted to hear them live since I first heard them on the radio several years ago. Hearing just one of their songs, (The Ubiquitous Mr. Lovegrove) inspired Chas and I to immediately go out and buy three of their albums on the hunch that we would like most of their stuff... needless to say we were not disappointed.) I'm so glad that the three of us were able to make arrangements to get out of the house together to go and be a part of this.

6 comments:

culfinglin said...

i'm going to go see them on sunday. :)

royalbananafish said...

I feel the same way about their concert in Seattle last weekend. It was worth every penny and then some. I liked the semi-trance effect, it made the concert extremely interesting (though I wish I'd taken notes on what went through my head).

heartssdesire said...

Hi! I got your message and was on my way down to find you, but then I ran into people I hadn't seen in 10 years, and by the time we had chatted a bit the show was starting. I looked where I thought your seat would be but didn't recognize you. Anyway, wasn't it beautiful? They played a *lot* of my favorite songs. But it was really, really hard not to get up and dance, especially to Yulunga. I loved that last song, whatever it was. I've never heard that before. Is that their own or a cover?

0rko said...

I believe it's an original composition. From what I've heard it has something tangentially to do with Lisa Gerrards views on the war in Iraq. It's called 'Hymn for the Fallen (Mantras)' and if you click over to my journal, I have a link so you can download it.

garan_du said...

I'm envious. Glad you had a good time.

iamthespark said...

I was listening to Dead Can Dance all last week at work. I guess I have you guys to blame for that. Actually, one of my coworkers lent me something by Godspeed You Black Emperor! and that made me want to listen to Dead Can Dance. But, I find it to be an interesting coincidence, nonetheless.