Delerium Concert Review
Music September 15th, 2008
I went to see Delerium
They had three opening acts, which I felt was about one too many. First up was Sarah Fimm. I’d never heard of her before that night but I enjoyed her songs very much. It was just her and her keyboard on stage, but I was off to the side so I could see her “band” (guy with a laptop) backstage.
Next was Elsiane. She was good too. Her voice was very distinct; if Bjork and the Cranberries had a baby it would sound like her. She had a drummer and a bass player with her, but the music was fully orchestrated. It always weirds me out to hear a bunch of instruments that aren’t on stage, but then again I have the curse of not being able to watch anything without over analyzing it.
The third act was Morgan Page doing a DJ set. He had an Allen and Heath controller probably hooked up to Traktor or something. He played like four songs and did a lot of things with effects and stuff. I enjoyed the set, but I think the problem was that by now everyone was ready for some Delerium. Plus this wasn’t exactly the club/raver crowd. I got the “Um, I forgot my glowsticks at home” vibe from everybody. Again, he was good, but he seemed like a weird match for Delerium (unlike the first two acts).
After lots of sound-checkage and one microphone replacement, Delerium started playing. Bill Leeb was there in the back playing keyboards. There was a drummer, a bass player and a guitar player (here’s a video that introduces them).
Kristy Thirsk came out on the second song. She’s incredible. She has a very wide range and her ethereal voice gave me chills at a few points during the concert. She also versatile enough that she does an amazing job of singing songs that she didn’t originally sing on the albums.
A couple songs later Elsiane came back out to sing with them. What happened to Leigh Nash? I was under the impression that she’d be there. I looked around the Intertubes but I couldn’t find any clues as to where she might have gone. Elsiane seemed confused at first like her monitor wasn’t working or something, but she settled in and sounded good.
Most of the songs had more of a rock quality to them than they usually do. This was due partially to the live instruments (much of Delerium’s sound is very electronic and heavily produced) and partially to the sound guy’s tendency to mix the guitar way up in the mix and the backing tracks with all the synths/electronic drum fills/chanting/etc. way down. I wanted to go play with the mixer but I’ll bet I would have gotten in trouble.
Bill Leeb had two keyboards on stage with him. The top one was an M-Audio MIDI controller. I was trying to tell what the synthesizer he was playing was, but the back was covered by a cloth. Here’s a not-so-great picture of it I found on YouTube:
Edit: Matrix says that it’s a Kurzweil K2000. Thanks Matrix!
The highlights of the show for me were “Silence” (that song kicks much @$$ live), “Incantation” (I just like that song), and the acoustic version of “Heaven’s Earth” they did during the encore.
Their light show was pretty basic. Lots of PAR cans. They had four moving-yoke lights (MAC 2000s? I couldn’t really tell) that were enough to make up for all the PAR-cannyness in that small space. They had RGB LED light strips shining up on hangy pieces of cloth, except only one was blowing around like I think they were all supposed to. The effect was good though. There was also a cyc in the back where they were projecting trippy images.
I was surprised at how small the space/concert was. I guess I just figured that Delerium was big enough to pack stadiums by now. I’m glad they’re not, though (even if my reasons are selfish- sorry Delerium). I think I got a better show in the small space.
Delerium will be in San Francisco tonight and will be making their way across the US through the first part of October, so if you have a chance to check them out I would highly recommend you do so.
