JOAN BAEZ St David’s Hall, Cardiff 8 March 2007
Billed, without a hint of hyperbole, as “An Evening With Joan Baez”, tonight was a minor revelation for distant admirers of the topical songstress, as she played a 100 minute set that was immaculate in practically every way. Even so, given both the breadth and depth of her back catalogue and her ear for a contemporary tune lurking outside of it, I harbour the strong suspicion that she could’ve played an entirely different set and been received with equal rapture.
Flanked by two multi-talented guitarists, themselves masters of every four- and six-stringed instrument at their disposal, she seemed like a walking, talking, dancing (gently, but definitely) lexicon of folk song. She doesn’t mention him by name, of course, but opening with “Farewell, Angelina” seems like an unnecessary genuflection; at other points in the evening she visits “With God On Our Side” (with, if I recall correctly, the death toll increased from the original’s six million to eleven million, perhaps intending it as a more inclusive, encompassing tragedy) and towards the end of “Lover Is Just Another Word” breaks out in a sardonic caricature of the song’s author. There’s also a haunting, entirely solo “Diamonds & Rust”, whose spell is wickedly shattered when she alters the closing lines to “If you’re offering me diamonds and rust/I’ll take the Grammy!” in recognition of her recent Lifetime Achievement Award.
Outside the inevitable Dylan connections and connotations, she performed “Long Black Veil” (prefaced with an anecdote about meeting Johnny Cash, then known in folk circles to be besotted with June Carter, who introduced his then spouse as “my first wife”) and “Joe Hill” (alongside memories of hitching a helicopter ride into Woodstock with Janis Joplin) and Steve Earle’s “Christmas In Washington”. “Finlandia” was sung acapella to the folks behind the stage (a seating configuration I’ve not encountered outside “Don’t Look Back” and the cover of Simon & Garfunkel’s “Live From New York, 1967”). “Carrickfergus” was one of few songs to undergo a gender change; more surprising were “Stand By Me” – well, she was covering Stevie Wonder 35 years ago, and it doesn’t take much to recontextualise it as a labour anthem – and Tom Waits’ “The Day After Tomorrow”, a song so new to her repertoire that she had to read the lyrics, diminished not at all by the absence of Waits’ gravel-gargling growl. “Green, Green Grass Of Home”, arguably the unofficial Welsh national anthem, was another neat trick, and reflecting on hearing the city’s church bells from her dressing room she offered the appropriate snippet from “The Bells Of Rhymney” – “That’s the only line I know of that song!”
If there was some suggestion that her voice was a little cracked and impure during the first few songs, whatever medicinal draught was contained in the mug she drank from during the evening soon put paid to that, and her trademark vibrato had returned by the end of the night. This being St David’s Hall the acoustics were immaculate throughout. In summary, if you like folk music (that sweet, uh, folk music) of any stripe, if you value passion, commitment, purpose and poise in your music making, you really should go see her.