Melissa Etheridge concert

Well, finally had the chance to see one of our all time favorite artists in concert. Incredibly talented vocalist and songwriter...even if she does seem to do a lot of "scratching, crawling, biting. clawing, holes in her chest, nails across her skin, standing outside of windows in the rain, scorched agony tattoed across her very soul" kind of songwriting...

But there was just something missing...

Even at her most mediocre I would guess that she outshines most performers...

Simply breathing into the microphone her talent is obvious...

One of those true rock voices...

But...but...

She used to be hungry and edgy. There was a sort of bite to her presence, her songs, her delivery, her movements...Now she seems...tame, domesticated, kinda packaged and canned in a way...

with generic comments to the audience more fitting of a Holiday Inn lounge act, kind of a peripheral quality to the whole performance...hard to explain...a glancing blow from an artist who could be nearly lethal with the passion in her writing and voice...

So, we were glad to have been a part of it...but we were also a bit disappointed. Perhaps it is the settling down with the woman who calls her "honey this" and "honey that"...or the weariness that must result from touring city after city...or just the mellowing that comes with age and comfortable success...who knows....it isn't as if I could truly criticize talent like that. She is something else...a natural...but that EDGE was missing.

But after a five hour drive to get to the concert, to see the woman who could have practically written the soundtrack for our young adulthood...perhaps our expectations were unrealistically high. I didn't need smoke and explosions though...just that hungry, angry at times, passionate, full of energy, dramatic, devastatingly accurate with her words, one in a million whisky and smoked rock voice artist that we have loved for decades now...

I'd do it again. It is Melissa, after all.

Little C has left...some serious mucous festival action (on my part) with the tears and snot at our parting...I will have LOTS of photos of the fun stuff we did coming shortly. SO glad to have had this time...and thanks to gramma and grandpa for taking her to enable my work, Coley's schedule, and of course that concert...