Tanya at the Hard Rock Cafe in Houston, TX November 12, 1997
Paul reports:
I'll let someone else post the song list for the Houston show, as my short term memory is just that. The show at the Hard Rock Cafe was a great performance! There was no opening band, which was fine, and Tanya came out to the mike and told Gary (?) that they were doing "Acrobat", so we didn't get to hear "Bees" (sigh).
Acrobat isn't my favorite, but it sounded fine live. I guess that I would have rather seen her come out rocking, but she got into that soon enough with "Dusted", which she announced as "an oldie"! "Bright Light", "Landspeed Song", and "Breathe Around You" were all excellent live. She really seemed to enjoy "Bright Light", standing with arms extended & floating gently as if expecting to be lifted away by her friends...
She got going with the Tanya stomp a couple of times, which was fun to see. I particularily enjoyed "Mysteries of the Unexplained" and "Swoon" as she obviously enjoys singing these slow melodic songs, and I just closed my eyes to capture the atmosphere. There certainly was a difference between the Belly tunes ("Dusted" and "Low Red Moon") and LFU tunes, with the Belly stuff seeming to have a deeper/fuller all-around sound. This is mostly in the instrumentation, not in the lyrics. Yet, I still enjoy the new songs more right now. "Low Red Moon" was captivating and powerful....I just loved it!
She was much more relaxed in the second half of the show, smiled more & thanked the crowd. The Moog guitar thing was giving her trouble, you could tell, and she really stomped the crap out of it when she would kick it in for some of the heavy guitar licks. It was great! She also made a point to thank the station, KTBZ, for being different from the norm, in that they gave her extensive publicity and airtime leading up to the show. She did this as a lead in to "Mysteries".
The show closed with the acoustic "Feed the Trees" with the modified last verse, and then the Zombies cover which fit in quite well with her singing style.
Several of us list members met up for the show, Darren, Clay, Rob, Steven, and another fellow (name escapes me, sorry, it's that short term memory thing again). We were able to chat before and after the show, which was nice.
Don't miss the chance to go see the live show, you're not going to be disappointed.
Paul