The Highland Line: why SuBo's gig in Inverness was a homecoming
Blackburn in West Lothian and Inverness have not had many links down the years, but the Highland capital opened its arms to the former’s celebrated daughter this week.
They came from across the Highlands to see Susan Boyle, and well beyond.
One party had come all the way from the US determined to see her, and were due to attend the succeeding shows in Aberdeen, Dundee, Edinburgh and Glasgow as well. The tour was highlighted in the USA Today newspaper with the angle that she was looking for a husband.
But perhaps more surprising than the North American perspective was the extraordinary response from the locals - or at least those who had bought tickets for the performance and had packed out Eden Court Theatre.
With its 840 seats, the main auditorium is the largest performance venue in the Highlands and Islands, and all 840 were all filled. Until, that is, her name was announced and the first standing ovation started, before she had even appeared on stage.
That was after two warm-up songs - in the unlikely event you are interested they were It’s a New Dawn and Luck Be A Lady Tonight - from Lance Ellington, who for four years was the featured singer on Strictly Come Dancing, apparently.
It was Mr Ellington who announced the star. She appeared at the back of the stage in silhouette as the soundtrack to that famous audition of Britain’s Got Talent was replayed, complete with her exchanges with Simon Cowell. She added her wiggle for real.
This was what it was all about. The shared memory of that extraordinary few minutes four years ago when a clearly vulnerable underdog triumphed over everything life at thrown at her, and made a few famous people look a little bit silly along the way.
The closest thing to global overnight success possibly ever seen followed. So did 19m album sales and the top spot in the charts in more than 30 countries.
To a man and woman in Inverness, they all knew the narrative. She knew they knew, and it appeared that to her the Scottish people were now part of it. When she introduced Somewhere Over The Rainbow, she said: “This song is about a wee lassie who goes on an incredible journey - I can relate to that.” Everybody there could.
What was genuinely touching was the huge importance that Susan Boyle herself was clearly attaching to the tour to five Scottish cities. It was as though, notwithstanding what she has achieved so far and the millions earned, she wouldn’t really see herself as having made it in the business until she had been on the road with her own show.
It was a compelling occasion even to the cynical and televisually-challenged observer sent to review it.
The embrace of the audience was both warm and protective, almost reaching out to steady her - not least when it looked as though her heels were just too high.
Her onstage fragility was only apparent between songs. When the music played she was at home.
But SuBo - a name she hates as it makes her sound like a Brazilian footballer - surprised everybody at the start. The BGT sound replay went right up to the point where she had sung I Dreamed a Dream at the audition. But not in her show. She tellingly broke into Out Here On My Own.
It may have been appropriate choice on one level. But she did have an eight-piece band and two backing singers, and every so often 20 members of the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland choir would appear. They were there for a pretty powerful version of You Raise Me Up.
When she finally sang I Dreamed a Dream at the end, the audience was ecstatic.
And after the last applause had died, it was difficult not to ponder the essence of fame and celebrity; the global reach of telecommunications and human identification that have all combined to create the phenomenon that is Susan Boyle. It was difficult, but not impossible.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.