By Monk and The Dark Queen
“All my life I’ve been waiting for you to bring a fairytale my way” could very well be the singular line that summarizes this first ever visit to ÜR’s home city by an artist seeking to make up for time lost by leaving us outside alone (sic) from her tour schedule for so long, with many of the audience (including our very own DQ) having waited half or more of a lifetime for this night.
Tasked with opening proceedings is New York songstress Casey McQuillen, who proves to be an ebullient and effusive force of nature, quickly rising to the challenge of playing such an historic venue and winning over the notoriously partisan Belfast crowd with her charm and wit, coupled with her collection of blue-collar redbrick tenement-infused songs of defiance in the face of adversity and heartbreak, coupled with the optimism of fulfilling dreams.
After a suitably timed half-hour break, what follows is an arena-size show in a theatre setting as Anastacia brings her Noo Yawk-style neighbourhood block party, complete with graffiti-covered walls and street lights to the darkened heart of Belfast. Right from the off, the lighting show is stunning, a mixture of static spots built into the street scene backdrop and strafing counterparts dancing in and around both the stage and venue, intermingled with precisely targeted and carefully choreographed lasers – and no needless strobes, just beautifully timed explosions of luminescence that accentuate and compliment the on stage performances.
During her first spoken interaction with the packed out crowd, Anastacia references the history of the venue, and especially Led Zeppelin’s debut performance of ‘Stairway To Heaven’ on the same (albeit rebuilt at least twice) stage on which she is now performing, an allusion later refrained in her introduction to ‘Best Days’, which she refers to as “your Led Zep moment”.
With the set just over a third of the way through, she exits for her first of two costume changes, allowing backing singers Nick and Holly to take the spotlight for themselves with a poppy medley combining snippets of Madonna (‘Vogue’), No Doubt (‘No Diggity’) and Backstreet Boys (‘Everybody’).
Shortly after her return, she strips things right back as a trio of red stools are brought on stage and drummer strides a beatbox for the trilogy of ‘Secrets’, ‘Welcome To My Truth’ and the emotional ‘How Come The World Won’t Stop’. Many had been questioning why Anastacia has been playing such comparatively small stages on this run: this was the answer…
Then its time for another costume change with guitarist Lewis taking over lead vocals for a very passable version of Free’s ‘Alright Now’, which succeeds in getting a large portion of the crowd singing along before Anastacia returns, this time suitably clad in black and silver, for the final, and definitely rockiest, segment of the show, kicked off with another passable (if arguably needless) cover, with the singer proving if Slash and the boys are ever looking for a replacement for the temperamental Mr Rose then she would make more than a fitting candidate as she rips her way through ‘Sweet Child O’ Mine’.
Perhaps inevitably, she saves the biggest pops to the end of the set, as she finally fulfills that fairytale by telling us what it’s like to ‘Live Outside Alone’, threatening to raise the roof of this Victorian building, already showing cracks in its plasterwork despite having been refurbished a decade ago, as the crowd sing back every word – something which is repeated shortly afterwards when she busts through the curfew and leaves the audience to our own devices during her final bow.
I’ll admit to being one of the 50 per cent of the male audience who were probably cajoled by their other halves into going along to this show. I didn’t know what to expect. I hoped it would be a good show by a performer who undoubtedly knows how to belt out a tune or three. And, it was a good show: a sort of mix between a backstreet lounge bar and a episode of ‘Soul Train’, with massive production values adapted to a more intimate setting, and all the more impressive for that level of thoughtfulness.
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