I would be remiss not to mention that we caught Belly in concert on Friday night celebrating 30 years since the release of their sophomore album, "King," which effectively ended the band at the time. Considered a commercial failure after the "Star" debut -- which had the alt radio hits "Feed the Tree," "Slow Dog" and "Geppetto" and garnered them a best new artist Grammy nomination -- I've always considered it to be the superior of the two, sounding like a cohesive album rather than a bunch of songs collected over time. And now three decades later, others are re-evaluating it -- and even coming out to celebrate it, if the sold-out show at the Palladium Theater was any indication.
The band started off shaky, with word that they were all recovering from Covid that they'd caught on the U.K. leg of the tour. But once they got going, playing "King" in the sequence of the original LP and then taking a 15 minute break before returning to paly their other hits and misses, as well as my all-time favorite B-side, "Spaceman," it ended up being an unforgettable night. As some of you may agree, Tanya Donelly is an underappreciated singer and songwriter, whose turns of phrase have been leaving me gobsmacked since my 20s, so I will go see her any chance I get.
Special shout-out to fellow '90s alt darling Tracy Bonham, who delighted the crowd by joining in on her two favorite Belly songs, "Slow Dog" and "Feed the Tree," which you can see a bit of below:
Take a bow
(BTW: I'm still getting a handle on that venue, which sort of took over for acts of this caliber when B.B. King's club closed. Sometimes the Palladium has tables throughout -- like when we saw En Vogue -- and sometimes it's mostly standing with just a few tables around the perimeter. Thinking that it would be like the En Vogue show, I paid for a table and then wound up in the very back of the joint -- having inadvertently shelled out extra to guarantee the worst seat in the house!)
No comments:
Post a Comment
All comments must be signed.