"I'm from the old school," smiles kd lang, skipping barefoot about the stage, "I'm like Liza Minnelli. I dance, I sing, I talk."
And she does. True, the dancing lacks a certain professional grace and rhythm. But she makes up for that with energy and enthusiasm as she lollops and flops and flails about the boards, like a child in drama class. "A choreographer left me her card after a show recently" she beams, "Wasn't sure whether that was an insult or a compliment."
kd is fine on the talking front too, answering the numerous heckles and cries from the largely female audience of "we love you kd", "give us a kiss" and "get em off" with a warm charm and endearingly sharp wit. "After all this time you still love me?" she asks, confident in the reply. "Sorry it took me so long to come back. I've been at the beach."
As for the singing? Well, a few songs into this first of two nights lang's rich, strong, pure and true tones deliver an incredibly moving version of Roy Orbison's 'Crying'. She gets a standing ovation. A wild, deafening frenzy of whoops, shouts and claps and awestruck smiles that seems to last a lifetime. It feels like the end of the show, like nothing else could possibly follow it. But the evening just gets better.
Noticing photographers at the foot of the stage she says "Are you making me look pretty? Image is everything to me". Then looking down at her hooded, blue-striped, baggy top, baggy trousers and naked feet she grins "It took me hours to get ready tonight."
Nope, image is not part of the kd lang experience. Just human warmth, a truly fantastic voice and fine, summery, country-flavoured pop songs which make you think of love affairs, sultry summer breezes and the child-like thrill of feeling sand between your toes.
Dipping largely into this year's gorgeously mellow and criminally neglected album 'Invincible Summer' lang and her band of "friends" play the floaty Hawaiian, perfect pop twang of 'should've-been-a-huge-hit-single' 'Summerfling' -lang throwing surfer shapes- the dreamy and tender 'The Consequences Of Falling' and the quirksome catchy pop of 'It's Happening With You'.
Part Fifties crooner, part soulful country singer, part cheeky tomboy, lang is a great and giving performer. Introducing the band, she hugs and kisses each one in turn. In other hands this could seem fake or corny but not here, not tonight. lang is the genuine article.
Taking us "for a swim in the warm, luscious waters of love and romance" she launches into the sleepy, pedal-steel tinged 'Love's Great Ocean', followed by 'When We Collide', a tear-duct tuggingly romantic song which sweeps and soars and gets a tad rocky towards the end, with lang going into another of her dancing fits.
Finally yielding to pleas for "old ones" lang obliges with the timeless beauty of 'Constant Craving', everyone standing, dancing and rushing down the front to touch the lady lang's hand before she leaves the stage.
When she does return she's an incredible sight. Dressed in a vast billowing lemon ballgown, complete with a towering black wig she looks like Les Dawson in French period costume. She dances around the stage to huge cheers, bubbles filling the air as another old favourite, 'Miss Chatelaine', gets an airing.
She ditches the dress, sings an unbelieveable operatic few bars of 'MacArthur Park' to her discarded finery -you had to be there- and then finishes off with another rendition of 'It's Happening With You' -the next single perhaps?
Then the all-dancing, all-singing, all-talking kd lang departs, leaving us all with a rosy, self-satifisfied glow and the memory of one of the best gigs this reviewer has been to in ages.
