Track Listing

1. Wonder
2. San Andreas Fault
3. Beloved Wife
4. Space Oddity
5. Carnival
6. Dust Bowl
7. After the Gold Rush
8. Gun Shy
9. Gulf of Araby
10. Ophelia
11. Seven Years

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #138801 in Music
• Released on: 1999-11-09
• Number of discs: 1
• Formats: Live, Import

Amazon.co.uk Review
With just a pair of CDs--Tigerlily and Ophelia--in her solo-career arsenal, Natalie Merchant isn't an artist you'd expect to release a live album. Perhaps Merchant is fond of playing live, which shows throughout these 11 tracks, despite her relaxed, unflappable vocal delivery. The former 10,000 Maniacs frontwoman leads an amped "Wonder" and then coos into "San Andreas Fault"; the latter is expansive and dramatic, a direction Merchant is exploring that's alternately off-putting and charming. Merchant's version of David Bowie's "Space Oddity" is even more philosophical and meditative. Add to that a languid take on Neil Young's "After the Gold Rush" and you have a full-scale portrait of Merchant's mindset. The ever-sombre music is limited in its emotional scope, but there are few performers in mainstream pop who excel more in that range. --Andrew Bartlett

From Amazon.com
With just a pair of CDs--Tigerlily and Ophelia--in her solo-career arsenal, Natalie Merchant isn't an artist you'd expect to release a live album. Perhaps Merchant is fond of playing live, which shows throughout these 11 tracks despite her relaxed, unflappable vocal delivery. The former 10,000 Maniacs frontwoman leads an amped "Wonder" and then coos into "San Andreas Fault"; the latter is expansive and dramatic, a direction Merchant is exploring that's alternately off-putting and charming. Merchant's version of David Bowie's "Space Oddity" is even more philosophical and meditative. Add to that a languid take on Neil Young's "After the Gold Rush" and you have a full-scale portrait of Merchant's mindset. The ever-somber music is limited in its emotional scope, but there are few performers in mainstream pop who excel more in that range. --Andrew Bartlett

Customer Reviews

Different, yet impressive
After purchasing the MTV live version I was surpised as to hear the difference in which this most talented vocalist performed. MTV is filled with strong powefull crasendoes, where as with one or two exceptions this album is devoid of emotinal strain.

This may be true but the album is simply different from the MTV version. It is refreshing to hear this different approach to this album, Natalie is an artist who is not afraid to let her emotion rule the music as opposed to the other way round, which is so often evident in musical works of recent times.

The backing band and tight and very melodic, they compliment Natalies voice no-end.

The albums accoustics are well structured and placed around natalie's voice in order to reamain prominent but not to hinder the superiority or her vocals. The HDCD capabilities of this cd are subtle but they do give the vocals that extra edge as well as defining the band further more, it especially pronounces the guitar, which is prominent throughout.

The album lends it's self to different systems more profoundly than other albums that I have listened to, with a strong mid-range the album perferes the more defined system, but at the same time requires powerfull underlying support if it is to sound full and alive.

She really does have the most beautiful voice in music.
Natalie Merchant rarely writes happy songs these days it seems. Even the previously upbeat "Wonder" gets slowed down and retrod in the initial stages, and of the entire CD only that and "Gun Shy" (an odd choice from an album as seminal as In My Tribe) seem to have much tempo to them. What Natalie Merchant does do though is write some of the best slow songs on the business, and for a night relaxing after a hard day at work she has the sort of voice that you could pray for.

Live In Concert was an odd release, coming only 2 albums into her solo career (and incidentally only 2 albums after 10,000 Maniacs Unplugged), and like her other solo material her territorial markings are all over it. With only 2 10kM songs cannibalised for the album, both rendered remarkably closely to the original arrangements, the majority of the album is taken from Tigerlily, with 3 'interesting' covers thrown in for good measure. Its worth adressing the cover versions first, if only because each of them brings a special degree of magic to the collection.

Merchant seems unsure whether "Space Oddity" should be sarcastic or tragic, but that just adds to her delivery as it seems to become maternal- and Merchant is always happiest when she is scolding us. Major Tom is the victim of his own success, and she seems to be guilty in her sorrow at his passing. "After the Gold Rush" on the other hand is the sort of poetry Merchant likes to write, and likes to sing. Her voice excels at this type of song, and the inclusion of Mother Nature satisfies her attraction to the twin causes of femininity and environmentalism. Her languid delivey of the song does it many favours and Neil Young should be very proud. The third cover is the most impressive, as Merchant tackles a song she obviously loves, Katell Keineg's "Gulf of Araby". The love she has for the song and her passionate delivery of the lyrics is all her own. Having heard Merchant and Keineg duet on this song I had hoped that version would be on this live collection, but Natalie is more than capable of telling us 'What is and what can never be' on her own.

Merchant seems less passionate in a lot of cases about her own songs, a serious flaw. "Beloved Wife" is almost lacklustre, while "Wonder" is done no favours. Comparatively, "San Andreas Fault" is rendered significantly better here than on Tigerlily, while "Carnival" is also given a strong polished live sheen.

Predictably, when she gets to Tigerlily's ultimate ballad, Merchant comes alive big style. "Seven Years" closes the album on a fantastic high, her voice soaring and swooping throughout. She throws herself into it in a way that makes you want more, even to listen to the album again just to reach that crescendo. Amazing.

Beautiful, warm, emotional - my fave for the last six months
I've got a lot of live albums to compare it to, and this is one of a tiny handful which really take the artist's material to a new level. I've liked both the 10,000 Maniacs and Natalie's own work for a while now, but "Live In Concert" is a revelation. The instrumentation is warm, full and atmospheric and Natalie sings with an intensity which leaves me emotionally drained after listening to the album right through -- which is what I usually end up doing. The album has been described as sombre, but I find it immensely moving and uplifting. A 'must have'.