Korea Herald: Krall's refined music marred by shoddy stage

[Bud]

Source: http://www.koreaherald.co.kr/SITE/data/ ... 020024.asp

Krall`s refined music marred by shoddy stage

One of the reasons for listening to jazz music is its almost mesmerizing improvisation by seasoned musicians. But one thing that shouldn`t be improvised is the stage setting, and that marred the otherwise fine performance of Diana Krall on Thursday night in Seoul.

Krall showed up for the Seoul Millennium Hilton Hotel Convention Center just shy of 8 p.m. with three other band members amid roars and cheers from the mostly Korean audience who almost packed the makeshift 2,000-seat hall. This was her third appearance in Seoul following successful performances in 1999 and 2002.

The Canadian pianist-singer started with a greeting, "Hello, Seoul," with the sound of the country`s capital as the "soul" in the jazz genre.

Although her performance was by and large respectable, some audience members - especially those who paid $100-150 for the much-coveted tickets - might have left with "hurt souls" due to the shoddy stage setting, not-that-refined lighting system and the absence of big screens which are usually available for a concert of this size and scale.



▲Diana Krall, a world-renowned jazz pianist-singer, performed in Seoul on Thursday night. [Yang Sung-jin/The Korea Herald]

Clad in black suit, Krall mostly sat in front of her piano, showcasing her colorful techniques as a world-renowned, Grammy-winning artist. But she was not absorbed in her own performance. When Anthony Wilson, guitarist, went on to dominate the stage with his hypnotic play that pulled heartstrings of the audience, Krall stopped playing and repositioned herself to watch his performance, her head swinging rhythmically.

Following some five minutes of the inspiring solo play by Wilson, she finally began to work on the piano, as if she wanted to strike her fragile hands into each and every piano key without any intention of pulling them back. But who cares? The song was "Devil May Care."

When Emmanuel Riggins, a drummer, stole the stage with his refined performance for several minutes and bassist Robert Hurst exuded a sense of elegance all over the stage, Krall also seemed to be enjoying the event itself, though she looked a bit tired due to the tight schedule of the Asian tour.

One of the ironies was that Krall`s jazz piano performance was so engrossing that when she switched into singing her well-known numbers with her trademark sultry, sensuous voice, it came as a sudden wake-up call to focus equally on her two talents - piano and jazz vocal.

But the audience found it difficult to focus on because of the "harsh" seat design. Even premium R-seat holders couldn`t watch the stage clearly because the composition of the seats was too spread horizontally. Many in the audience attempted to position their neck about 90 degrees from the center (the seats are placed straight ahead), but it wasn`t easy to hold that posture for one and a half hours.

"It`s certainly one of the worst stage and seat settings I`ve ever seen," said Park Sang-shook, a reporter from a local daily newspaper. She said that it was physically challenging to keep looking at the stage due to the poor design. "And there are no projection screens whatsoever for those who are seated far behind, which is good for focusing on her music only, but it`s a laughable stage design for such pricey tickets," she said.

Mastmedia, a Korean company that organized the show, was far from apologetic. "We just set up the stage as we got instructions from the tour team, and there`s nothing wrong about it," said Shin Jae-eun, a Mastmedia official.

But it seemed there was not that much communication between Mastmedia and Krall`s Asian tour team, since producer Bo said it`s strange that some seats were positioned too close to the stage, a comment that conflicted with Shin`s remark.

Why the "laughable" design? In fact, the brochure itself reveals some clues. Mastmedia boasts that "We are staging a successful show thanks to your great help, even though the performance in Seoul had to be prepared in just 20 days."

Even though Mastmedia devoted 20 days to preparing the set and marketing the concert, tickets sold well. The reason: it`s what the brochure and Mastmedia call "One Night Only" performance. If you miss it, there`s nothing you can do about it. If you get the ticket and do not enjoy the show, it`s no problem for organizers, since it`s a one-off event. The sobering implication: The risks are unfairly placed on the audience only when marketers somehow manage to strike a deal with world-famous musicians like Krall.

At the end of the performance, Krall responded to the eager Korean audience who cheered "Encore" by saying that "You`re a soulful audience, and I really appreciate that."

That`s another nifty pun on the Seoul performance, but what she failed to catch was distorted improvisation on the part of organizers. In an interview with Korean media prior to the Seoul concert, she noted that jazz is all about "freedom," a concept meaning that she can show whatever she wants freely. And at the center of freedom lies improvisation, she said. Clearly, she didn`t mean that some concert organizers and promoters could cheapen her performance by "improvising" the stage set preparations.

(insight@heraldm.com)

By Yang Sung-jin



2005.04.02

ⓒ Copyright 2002~2004 Digital Korea Herald. All rights reserved

[Eric in Long Beach]

I get the impression that there was some sort of staging problem, but I'm not sure. The author is not very clear on that point.

[Coda]

I was wondering how "short" the short show was, until the bottom of the article mentions 90 minutes. That's Diana's standard show length, from what I've read on this board.

In Journalism School, we were told to avoid opinions in news articles: don't say "a tall man," say "six feet." What's tall to one person is short to another. What's a short show to one may be standard for another. On the other hand, I guess as a fan that I'm happy the writer didn't say the show lasted too long!

[wush]

The title sounded like the stage was poorly constructed, sqeaked, about to collapse or something.

Fortunately it was just bad acoustics and seat positions.

Given DK's ever rising popularity and concert promotors quest to pack more seats in concert halls, this "shoddy stage" problem will only get worse.

I do hope DK's upcoming gigs in Sydney won't have such issues. The Sydney Opera House is world famous on the outside but the inside is another story.