Renaissance/Jann Klose - BIrchmere - Oct 12 2009

Jann Klose - We have a German born, but living in New York, singer/songwriter/guitarist playing acoustic. The highlight was a very good, strong voice with plenty of range. I see he is playing a Jeff Buckley tribute festival soon, where he will be a good fit. Songs were decent, but not too out of the ordinary from what I could detect on first listen. Decent enough opener.

Renaissance - To celebrate the day of my first half century on this planet, I indulged in seeing a band I really enjoyed in high school, yet had never seen before. The band is still lead by the two key ingredients, Annie Haslam on vocals and Michael Dunford on guitar. Coming on to excellent entrance music, the two are joined by a drummer, bassist and two keyboard players. It quickly becomes evident that having two keyboard players is a great idea as they can get piano, harpsichord, organ and synthesizer sounds out in great quantities to really fill out the songs and give a full rich sound to the songs which the quite large audience knows all too well. Haslam is in excellent voice and the players all do a great job. I think if I had tried to write the set list, I would have gotten 8 or 9 of the 10 songs selected. I am glad they did three off of my personal favorite, "Turn of the Cards" when I would have guessed one song. "Prologue" at the outset and "Ashes are Burning" as the encore both featured a lot of creative almost jazzy and rock touches that may surprise those that expect the pastoral classical folk rock that Renaissance mostly represents. Great set.

Quote of the Night: Annie Haslam - under her breath, but audible "shit, oops, sorry. I actually let two "shits" slip during a live radio interview this morning before they cut me off. It was just too early in the morning..."