Chris Isaak’s deeply musical show soars at Artpark
Published: August 05, 2009, 12:30 am
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Can a song actually break your heart?
It can if it’s one sung by Roy Orbison, who understood how to apply his blend of rock ’n’ roll, country and the high drama of opera to songs that captured the deep-blue-velvet aura of lost love and the like. Orbison remains the uncontested king of the genre he created, and if the likes of Bruce Springsteen channeled his influence into some of the finest writing of their own era, still, no one ever fully claimed the throne.
Chris Isaak has come awfully close throughout his career, however. And on Tuesday evening, Isaak and his seasoned band Silvertone played many of those heart-rending songs for an attuned, receptive crowd at Artpark.
Like Orbison, Isaak employs the music of the late ’40s and ’50s as his raw material and bares his soul in a wholly romantic manner. Then he fills the gaps between these mini-epics with raw, rootsy, Elvisand Jerry Lee-inspired rockers. It’s a recipe for a good time, and anyone who didn’t have one Tuesday didn’t try hard enough. I mean, come on — it didn’t even rain! Or at least, not enough so that I actually noticed. Or at least, it didn’t rain until the final encore of several.
Isaak arrived on stage resplendent in a turquoise suit, one that a lesser mortal could not have strutted about in with anything resembling conviction. Diving head-long into “American Boy,” the theme song from the Showtime series starring Isaak and Silvertone, Isaak made it plain that the suit was just a bonus; the man has enough charm to appear on stage in a T-shirt and jeans and still win the hearts of the crowd without raising enough sweat to threaten the sturdiness of his trademark pompadour. Another up-tempo tune, the Carl Perkins-speckled “Mr. Lonely Man,” followed, but it was only a matter of time before Isaak played his ace.
The back-to-back appearance of “Let Me Down Easy” and “Somebody’s Crying” was a masterful bit of set-list planning and celebrated Isaak’s most indelible gift—the ability to write genuine weepers that never pander to cheap emotion, while simultaneously offering an ample opportunity for the man to flex his vocal muscle. That process can often include the warbling beauty of his falsetto, or a single killer note held long enough to make the intended emotional crescendo of a point.
Isaak does indeed specialize in self-deprecating humor, and his band is always along for the ride when he indulges in the hilarity that made his Showtime show so memorable. This is part of his charm, and also partly why he gets away with singing songs that might otherwise be a bit depressing. So a rather campy, tossed-off version of Cheap Trick’s evergreen “I Want You to Want Me” perhaps earned Isaak the cash to spend on a gorgeous, heartfelt version of Orbison’s “Only the Lonely.”
Funny, deeply musical, unafraid of the dramatic stuff, Isaak and Silvertone put on one of the finest shows the Niagara Gorge has hosted this year.
Concert Review
Chris Isaak
Tuesday night as part of Tuesday at the Park at the Artpark Outdoor Amphitheater.
jmiers@buffnews.com
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