Beth Hart @ Effenaar

I saw Beth Hart for the first time at Bluesrock Tegelen, about 3 years ago. She was the odd one between all the heavy blues acts, which made her sound very refreshing that day. Bare-footed she plays straight-forward rock, with a little hint of blues and a lot of energy. Her history is an amazing one, with some familiar elements. Starting out as a talent-show regular (and winner), she recorded her first album in 1996. During the late 90s however she became heavily addicted to drugs, only to re-emerge clean and healthy in 2004 with a new and successful album. Now we are in 2008, and since a good friend of the family was ill, a ticket for Beth Hart was available for me. I was impressed by her a few years ago, and since this was at a small venue I looked forward to seeing her again.

With a big smile on her face she runs out on the stage to face the eager crowd. You directly get the impression that you are dealing with someone who has seen and been to the bottom of a little thing called life. With hard work and determination she climbed out of the cress-pool and she is enjoying everyday of her live now. In some ways the set-list of that night symbolises all the emotions she encountered in her years of fame, addiction and rehab. You`ve got the sad and slow moments that never seem to end. Then the moments where you just can`t keep the anger and frustration inside anymore and need to scream it out over the rooftops (my favourites this night). There are times of celebration, jubilation and pure loneliness. The music might be simple rock, but Beth adds a whole new layer with her performance and voice, which make it very interesting and fun to hear and watch.

Great examples of this uniqueness are the moments when she forgot a chord or lost the key. During two songs she asked (more "ordered") her band very friendly to stop and start over again, since she fucked up behind her piano. She seems to be a bit insecure, but still makes jokes about it with her guitarist, who will "hate her for this in the morning". She even gets the help from her audience to get her back on key, which perfectly reflects the great atmosphere at the performance. During these stops you also hear a lot of friendly fuck it's coming out of her mouth, basically telling herself and the audience not to worry too much about it. Especially because it was her last concert for a pretty long time.

In general it was a solid good performance with a woman who, to her advantage, has some loose strings in her head. She immediately captivated the largest part of the audience, and remained their sole object of interest during the whole set. A few comments though that do not relate directly to her performance. In my opinion one and a half hours is a bit short for a concert, but maybe this is the new trend in the age where the average album is not longer than 40 minutes? And what is wrong with those people who have the urge to keep on talking during the whole performance? If you want to have a decent conversation, why don`t you go to a bar? And besides the distraction it creates for the other audience members, it is also a bit disrespectful for the artist. She is singing her heart out on stage, while a bunch of guys is discussing the 5th unique guitar of the guitarist. Yes, I know it is a white Fender Stratocaster, now please shut up and listen!