By Dan Ouellette
NEW YORK (Billboard) – A benefit concert offering a potpourri of acts playing for a cause can be a dicey proposition.
In essence, the variety show format where each musician gets two tunes before getting the hook carries with it the potential for mishap. You run the risk of merely glimpsing performers warming up only to be grounded from flight just when they’re ready to soar. Or you’re held captive momentarily by an artist that you’d rather not have to sit — and suffer — through.
However, an eclectic gathering of musicians can make for an evening of delightful sampling and, if you’re lucky, revelation.
The annual Tibet House Benefit Concert, remarkably in its 14th year, had its share of uneven moments at Carnegie Hall on Feb. 25. But it also triumphed as an evening of stellar performances and pleasant surprises. Composer/pianist Philip Glass — VP of the Tibet House organization, a New-York-based cultural center founded in 1987 at the request of the exiled Dalai Lama — capably served as artistic director and ad hoc MC.
Glass has put these shows together for several years and has learned from experience to weave various artists together for a show on a clockwork schedule — thus ensuring that the event does not go the way of so many similar benefits, with verbosity and musical excesses stretching out the evening and wearing on audience attention span and patience. The Tibet House Concert wrapped neatly a tad over two hours.
Despite the inherent dangers in producing such a concert, Glass once again procured an impressive array of talent: David Byrne, Angelique Kidjo, Keb’ Mo’, Yo La Tengo, Conor Oberst and Bright Eyes, Tibetan composer Nawang Khechog and classical pianist Michael Reisman. The Tashi Lhunpo Monks opened the show with a low-toned, prayerful blessing on the event and the Tibetan Lunar New Year.
The special unannounced guest of the evening was long-time Tibet House supporter Patti Smith. Ray Davies, scheduled to appear but still recovering from a gunshot wound suffered in an altercation in New Orleans, sent his regrets via a letter that was read by Robert Thurman, the charismatic president of Tibet House and father of actress Uma Thurman.
The best abbreviated sets of the evening were turned in by bluesman Keb’ Mo’, all-purpose sparkplug Kidjo and Bright Eyes, the hands-down hit of the show. Keb’ Mo’ played two toe-tapping country blues numbers, “God Trying To Get Your Attention” and “Love Yourself,” After delivering the poignant tunes in homespun fashion, he noted, “These are simple songs not meant to tax your mind. You don’t have to go home and think, ‘What’d he mean by that?”‘
He was joined by Kidjo for the slowly swaying number “Zelie,” which she sung with piercing clarity and feisty growl. She later returned to close the evening with a three-song package that had the crowd on its feet dancing and singing. The highlights were her calypso-vibed “Congolero” and the Afro-pop dance tune “Afirika.”
Bright Eyes turned in the freshest and most urgent performance. The acoustic-guitar playing Oberst sang his prosaic melodies with gripping and quivering vocals. His angry, Dylanesque multi-versed “Land Locked Blues” was played starkly while his angst-driven “At the Bottom of Everything” took on the feel of a country hoedown. His literate lyrics shot straight to the heart.
Reisman defied the odds and with a string quartet gave a moving performance of Glass’s theme for the film “The Hours,” and Glass himself accompanied flutist Khechog on a light-weight and atmospheric tune they composed together earlier in the week. Glass returned to perform an incidental and rather redundant piano piece to support Smith reading a stirring but overly long excerpt from Allen Ginsberg’s poem “Wichita Vortex.”
The biggest disappointments were the tame and soporific short set by Yo La Tengo (featuring Ira Kaplan on off-key vocals) and the two-song selection by Byrne, who seemed to be in out-of-performance shape. His beautiful “The Revolution” from his last album was a dud, even with the string quartet backing. He never caught fire and was swept off the stage too soon.
The low point of the show came when Smith’s band mates — guitarist Lenny Kaye, bassist Tony Shanahan and drummer J. D. Dougherty — paid tribute to Davies with a half-baked two-song medley of his Kinks hits “Tired of Waiting for You” and “You Really Got Me.”
The finale, a tradition of the Tibet House benefits, ended the show with a rousing send-off. Keb’ Mo’ took the lead vocals on the house-rocking “Stand Up and Be Strong,” which featured most of the cast. It also included the most entertaining moment of the entire evening: watching Kidjo cajole Glass, Byrne and Keb’ Mo’ to all dance with her. She succeeded in rollicking style.
