No GPOYW tonight, death lingers in the air.
Back from the Regina Spektor show in Leeds, I came out of that show incredibly depressed.
She didn’t say a single word throughout the entire set, she smiled for no more than 5 seconds, she was ready to cry during several songs, there was no encore and on top of all that, an incredibly eerie spotlight shined down on an empty chair where cellist Daniel Cho would have sat.
There were few sing-alongs, no handclaps, no crowd movement. Just a solid lump in our throats for a whole 90 minutes and a couple of tears here or there from the people around me.
My opinion? She should have cancelled her tour. To be playing shows immediately after the death of a close friend is a poor judgement from Regina and her staff. Don’t get me wrong, the quality of her musical performance was spot on. She missed only a single note, her voice remained pitch perfect as always and the backing band (who only came on stage for three or four songs) supported her well. The fact of the matter is, an artist should not be performing live if they do not feel well; emotional trauma included. Put it this way: would you want go to work after a close friend of yours had died only a few days ago?
I will always love Regina Spektor and her music, yet I think she needs to take some time out, work on some new material and put on a new tour with the right mindset and approach - and I look forward to seeing, hearing and experiencing it all.
I wanna go get some sleep, perhaps I’ll wake up feeling brighter in the morning and hopefully in the mood to check Tumblr. My thoughts and condolences go out to session cellist Daniel Cho tonight, who sadly drowned whilst swimming with a friend in Montreux, Switzerland.
