Stoke-on-Trent - 18 October 2008

[grant]

Oct 22, 2008 7:33:16 GMT Steve H said:

Hi All you budding photographers,

Budding photographer's ? :rollin I was taking pictures with Mum's pre-war Kodak box camera before you were born!

Anyway, here are the last few Stoke pics from me.

Best wishes
Grant

[martindn]

Hi Grant,

Ah, they must be the ones where you were complaining of Hayey blinking at the wrong moment.

Thanks for a superb set of pictures. I think you've proved the point about the superiority of an SLR.

Martin

[Mark]

Hi Everyone

Thanks Grant for the last set of absolutely stunning photo's - crisp and clear.

Peter, It was a pleasure as always to catch up with you again last Saturday. It was me that you made the remark about the yellow/gold/limegreen dress to on our way back to the car park. My own view is that I didn't dislike the dress but it would nt be amongst my favourites.

I always enjoy reading your reports and like you, I noticed a real change in the way Hayley delivered the songs and I also think you are right in that ROD is more about the tour than the CD launch. The content of the tour is like a consolidation of all that she has achieved in her career so far - a showcase of the songs she loves to sing and in the changing of musical arrangements and her interpretation of the old familiar songs, she is showing how versatile she is and some of what she is capable of. I think thats why we got 'Never saw Blue' despite the fact that its not on the ROD album. Just my view of course !

Best wishes
Mark

[Dean McCarten]

Grant lovely photos Thank you, I hope I get the chance to return next week with similar photos, oh 7 days to go till my first Hayley Concert, I must start getting my tie ready

[martindn]

Hi Dean,

I'm sure you will enjoy it immensely. There is nobody like Hayley - she is awesome. And this tour is fabulous.
But you want to be sitting there and soaking up the experience on your first time, not concentrating on trying to take photos. Your first Hayley concert is a once in a lifetime experience, and you will come out on a terrific high, feeling more alive than you have ever been.
Actually that applies to all Hayley's concerts, but fornthe subvsequent ones you know what to expect. If you are lucky, there will be other members there to take the photos.

The time for a photo is when you meet Hayley, afterwards.

Have a great time!

Martin

[stephen]

f.a.o. Danny.

Sorry to hear about the failure to get a sponsor for this years event.This seems like the type of event my old employer the Co-operative Insurance Society may wish to get involved in if,we are lucky enough to have the event again.You would need to write with full details directly to the head office at Miller Street, Manchester.
Best of luck,

Stephen.

[martindn]

I mentioned Santa Lucia in my report, but didn't comment on how different it sounded. I've been trying to work out what she did with it. It was certainly very well received by the audience.
THat Wuthring Heights sounded much improved did not surprise me, since she has not performed that one for a very long time, and we know how beautifully her voice is maturing.

But Santa Lucia is a regular! This was my fifth Hayley concert this year, and I think she sang Santa Lucia at every one of them. But this was by far the most enjoyable of those performances, and I wondered how she had done it.
She gave it more "welly" for sure. But to my ears it sounded more "vivid" is the word that comes to mind. As if the colours were brighter, the image sharper and the sunshine more powerful.
She seemed to be getting something extra from her voice that wasn't there even a few weeks ago. I love how Hayley keeps surprising us with things like that!

Martin

[stephen]

Hayley a 1940'S girl at heart?.

The evidence is her style of dress on the night all of which could have been from that era.Secondly the inclusion of Now is the Hour.I think Hayley would have made a great big band singer.Perhaps I can leave you with the possible thought of Hayley singing "A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley "whilst in the black and gold dress?.

Stephen

[milewalker]

Oct 24, 2008 16:23:34 GMT stephen said:

Hayley a 1940'S girl at heart?.

The evidence is her style of dress on the night all of which could have been from that era.Secondly the inclusion of Now is the Hour.I think Hayley would have made a great big band singer.Perhaps I can leave you with the possible thought of Hayley singing "A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley "whilst in the black and gold dress?.

Stephen

I have had the feeling several times that Hayley was somehow born out of time. If she had reached vocal maturity in the 40's she might well have become the biggest star in the world.

[martindn]

Hi Jon,

Yes, I too have made that comment before. But then, when I think about it, my favourite performances by Hayley are with minimal backing. I love to hear her sing a capella, or with just a violin, or piano or guitar. I find her performances with a full orchestra somehow less enjoyable.
It is as if somehow, having a lot of other sound around dilutes her magic. And Hayley certainly isn't a jazz singer, despite Chatenooga Choo Choo, so I'm not convinced by the forties argument.
No, Hayley is fine right now. A change in the direction of popular music is long overdue, as evidenced by the continual harping back to earlier periods like the sixties and seventies. Dare I imagine that Hayley, with her immense talent, could be the spark?
People are longing for a new spirituality, for something that explains the meaning of life. Some of us have always known what that is, but there are many out there that don't. Perhaps Hayley is the start of a rebirth of truly spiritual music.
As someone else said, with Hayley around , the future is exciting. Hayley is the most exciting artist I have come across for many years, if ever in my lifetime. One day the worls will notice and when they do, she will become a legend.

Martin

[milewalker]

Hi Martin,

Actually, I wasnt thinking about the big bands when I said that. I was thinking in terms of the musicals and movies which came out of that era - and names like Deanna Durbin and Jeanette MacDonald leap out from the time. What sticks in my mind isnt Chattanooga Choo Choo - it is Sparkle. Actually I could have targeted the 50's just as well - in which case the timely paradigm might have been Shirley Jones. The most recent huge female star with music which has some similarity to Hayley's is probably Streisand who was a major star by 1964 - but even then one sees a drift towards more mainstream pop. Celine Dion now is the logical extension of Streisand - and while I have no doubt that Hayley could succeed with a Dionesqe repertoire, I suspect that something would be lost - ironically, she is too good (in a way) to be Dion.

I could easily be wrong, but I dont think there is any music revolution afoot presently in the direction of Hayley - this thread probably isnt the place to go further into that however.

Jon

[postscript]

Hi!

I like a lot of the sentiments expressed recently, milewalker, martindn ranging through the decades, then milewalker sits on the 50's which is what I wrote in the style of dress and her jaunty presentation of the Mummers Dance. What comes out of this discussion is the reason she attracts so many oldies. We need to look at what is actually there in her delivery and what is in her delivery that twangs the nostalgia strings and we put into our perception of her delivery!
Peter S.

[martindn]

Hi Peter and Jon,

I'm not sure it is any particular period that the music belongs to. Most of the songs that Hayley chooses are timeless. I think it has more to do with what I will call Hayley's musical ethos.

Much of the popular music of recent years is ugly. The only place where there is much beauty in music these days is the classical genre, Perhaps it is only we oldies who remember and appreciate that beauty these days, but surely more people would like to live in a kinder, more caring, more beautiful world. Perhaps we remember a kinder, if less prosperous age that the youngsters have not seen and cannot imagine.

This is really what I'm trying to say when I talk about music revolution. We have had half a century of predominantly ugly music. The Hayley revolution is beautiful music instead.

Yes there is nostalgia there. I'm delighted that she has recorded her beautiful version of Now is the Hour, for example, a song that my dad used to sing with his banjo when I was a kid. I think it must have been popular in the thirties, that's where most of the songs he sang came from.

As to where she might go, and the talk of the end of an era, I'm sure she will not move towards uglier music. Perhaps songs like Now is the Hour and Songbird point the way, and I could see her becoming more like say Joni Mitchell, or Eva Cassidy, writing a lot of her own songs but still trading in beauty. Eva Cassidy had an album that did quite well recently I understand, and she is another singer who trades on beauty (although Hayley blows her out of the water in my opinion).


Martin

[postscript]

Hi Martin,

I think we are both on track in our different ways, listen to Dave's recording of her Classic fm interview. My fin de cercle and new cycle for 2009 doesn't sound far wrong, she says she has new horizons for 2009 and is still daring.
Peter S.

[milewalker]

Hi Martin,

This is off topic I fear, so I will be brief

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

Also, every generation on record since there have been written records has claimed that the mores, and tastes of the younger generation are lacking. (It tends to be the older generation doing the writing )

I do agree however, that the evidence is such that Hayley's concept of beauty lies closer to the tastes of the previous generation than it does to her own.

Jon