I'm in the front row, the front row

Yes I know it's an Alanis Morrisette song and so applying it to a Suzanne Vega concert may seem silly, BUT I was in the front row for Suzanne Vega's Brighton concert last night. She was glorious, as always. The set list was:

Tom's Diner (original version)
Ludlow Street
New York Is A Woman
Caramel
Frank & Ava
Anniversary

Gypsy
Small Blue Thing
Left Of Centre
Blood Makes Noise

Angel's Doorway
Zephyr & I
Pornographer's Dream
In Liverpool
Luka
Tom's Diner (DNA remix version)

Queen & The Soldier
Marlene On The Wall


So the focus was on the new album, of course, which given that it's not out for a couple of weeks yet meant that the crowd were mainly politely appreciative of those songs. I was very happy that my second favourite from the album got an early airing ("Ludlow Street") though was a bit gutted that my favourite ("Bound") did not. On the whole though, she steered away from the more recent personal material she's written, which is fair enough. In between songs, she was as warm, personable and funny as she has always been. The only misstep, in my opinion, was choosing to close the main set with the hateful dance remix of "Tom's Diner". I have never ever ever liked that song and there's something ill fitting about someone as graceful and folky as Ms Vega trying to get down with her bad self. And it seemed to go on forever, so I was wryly amused when she returned for the encore and said "I bet you never want to hear that song again" before mockingly singing the "da da da duh, da da da duh" refrain one last time.

The highlight of the night for me though was after "Anniversary" the band left the stage and she performed a beautiful rendition of "Gypsy". Then Mike Visceglia returned to play bass for "Small Blue Thing" to accompany her acoustic guitar. But then "Left Of Centre" and "Blood Makes Noise" had been reworked so they were performed with ONLY the bass guitar as accompaniment. They both sounded fantastic in this stripped down format and were the real stand outs for me. I can't wait to see her again.