REVIEW: Joan Baez delivers an evening of mindful instalments
Joan Baez
BGE Theatre, Dublin
Joan Baez has declared that this is to be her final tour. She isn't quite going out with a roar, over-the-top displays of emotion never having been the protest singer's style.
Instead it was an evening that measured out its anger in mindful instalments, with the 77-year old New Yorker confronting environmental destruction, anti-immigrant prejudice and American gun laws without ever sounding less than warmly sardonic.
Almost 60 years have elapsed since the release of her first album and, with the decades, her voice has matured into a more refined instrument, no longer capable of the dizzying spirals of emotion of her 1960s pomp.
But there was still plenty of stridency throughout a big-hearted, full-throated performance, for which she was accompanied by multi-instrumentalist Dirk Powell, her son Gabriel Harris on drums and backing vocalist Grace Stumberg.
A cover of Woody Guthrie's 'Deportee' joined the dots between the bone-deep racism of the early 20th century and present day demonisation of migrants in America. And her version of Steve Earle's 'God is God' upgraded the wonder of the original with a perceptible sense of doubt.
To the audible appreciation of the sell-out audience, there were several forays into the songbook of Dylan, her friend and collaborator during the first flourishing of the American folk scene. 'It's All Over Now, Baby Blue' was warmer than Dylan's take, imbued with humour and humanity.
She dedicated 'The Times They Are A-Changin' to the survivors of the Stoneman Douglas high school shooting and their campaign against America's lack of gun control. As she began, a cameraman filming a documentary about Baez stepped on stage, and was a somewhat obtrusive presence.
The most powerful moment, perhaps, was Baez’s tilt at Antony and the Johnson's 'Another World', a highlight from her new album Whistle Down the Wind.
The original is a phantasmagorical lament for a dying planet. Baez's version was no less intense – but, stripped of Johnson’s baroque melodrama, it achieved a magnificent directness that sucked all the air out of the room. If this really was her final curtain, it was a send-off to cherish.
