Smokin'
Cesaria Evora
Live at Edinburgh Usher Hall
28th May 2004
The awesome voice from Cape Verde was in town on Friday. Support came from Modeste Hugues, just guitar and a percussionist. His guitar style reminded me of Dick Gaughan of all people. Good stuff and you can check out some samples on his website.
Cesaria Evora from the poverty stricken Cape Verde islands, plays barefoot on stage to remember the worlds poor. But the evening was about enjoyment. At first I thought it might be a bit of a stilted gig, with an older seated audience and in a venue that is anything but intimate. But the lighting (yes I'm talking about the lighting) managed to create the atmosphere of a smoky little bar in Lisbon. The audience too surprised me, with people actually getting up and dancing at the front of the stage. Yes, in Edinburgh, at the Usher Hall. Whatever next?
Cesaria was extremely cool. Announcing in Portuguese that she was having a break she sat down at a little table on stage and smoked a cigarette whilst the band played an instrumental. Same routine with the encore, she wouldn't come back on till she finished her ciggy. From a look at her website it seems she has had a pretty interesting life with three kids with different fathers. She had a bit of a struggle with the bottle until 1994 "when I ordered a whisky in a bar and heard people making remarks, I'd order another one, a double, so at least they had something to talk about."
The only down point of the night was the fact that the Usher Hall swallows up camera flashes. The pic above was the best I could do.
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