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DIDO – LIVE AT THE BRIXTON ACADEMY
Ladies and gentlemen, Dido live. And when I say Dido it's already an indescribable sensation, then I say live and it's pure emotion.
Ok, there are no extras on the DVD, but I can deal with it because there's a bonus CD so I can get emotional even in the car. London August 2004: it's raining, and that's nothing new. The novelty for me is the intro of “Stoned” which accompanies the images of the British capital, as I have always felt this piece as the link connecting Dido to her previous experience with her brother Rollo's Faithless. Dance atmospheres, "Scandinavian style" voice cold and lacking the usual three-dimensional and enticing beauty. But no: bass, percussion, and keyboards. On the charge, they seem to scream the drummer Alex's cymbals.
Dido starts off slow: it seems she doesn't want to go overboard with “Stoned”, but I'm completely wrong. The song has been rearranged in a grand, imposing, majestic way, splendid in the snare/voice part. We proceed with the well-known “Here With Me”, for all the nostalgics of the world, played as it is so as not to disappoint the fans. “See you When you’re 40” and then you understand what Dido's powerful magic is: even if a single hair was strummed, the piece would sound like it was being played by the Berlin Philharmonic. The power of the snare and the voice once again together in the initial part and the final acceleration. Next is the title track of the second album, “Life for Rent”, a guitar and the voice, but Dido in Guccini version is good for the eardrums. The playful “Hunter”, with percussion in the foreground; the beauty and simplicity of Vini's guitar in “Isobel”, in which Dido doesn't care about saving her vocal cords and sings angrily over every distortion in the world first and then wonderfully quietly after.
“My life” doesn't suit me, my pop idol doing soul doesn't suit me. “Honestly ok” and it starts again, with Dido telling us about herself in her most selfish (most beautiful?) text and Alex leaving the drums and offering Caribbean rhythms with a bongo tom. The bass drum of “Don't Leave Home” mocks the snare and duets with the guitar, and Dido's voice mocks both, surpassing itself. “Who is Kt Tunstall?” seems to ask the bass in “Mary's in India” when once again only two or three chords are enough for this half-French and half-Irish storyteller living in London to reconcile us with music (and singing). General messing around for “Take my Hand”, the first song Dido says she wrote, regains possession of the audience and prepares them for “Thankyou”, the much-anticipated karaoke of the evening.
I was just beginning to wonder when the moment for “Sand in my Shoes” would come (I made myself promise not to peek at the tracklist) and here I am satisfied. At the end of the song, I'm speechless for the indefinable Dido who with a masterful interpretation made the song, if possible, even more beautiful. Off we go then to “White Flag”, Christmas hit for Vodafone's kind concession, also performed identical to the original version for those present (who sing along, indeed). A bow and off. Not at all. You can't leave like this, girl. She returns, sits at the piano, and gives the most intense moment of the performance: “Do you Have a Little Time” in “acoustic” version (did I say something heretical, perhaps?) as she has always “felt” it too. Some memories in “All you Want”, enlivened by the live performance and surely energetic. Finally, “See the Sun”, prolonged infinitely by Dido's tones and the guitar.
If you're looking for a pyrotechnic show, you've picked the wrong DVD. If you're looking for something like an hour and a half of music, well… here we are.
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