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The 2007 tour for Ballad of the Broken Seas, with Isobel Campbell
The summer 2007 tours with Soulsavers and Isobel Campbell
The 2007 fall tour with Soulsavers, as well as the date supporting the Dylan soundtrack "I'm Not There"
27 January, 2007, Vooruit, Ghent, Blegium - Ballad of the Broken Seas Tour review by Danny ISOBEL CAMPBELL & MARK LANEGAN "A SPECIAL, EXCELLENT EVENING WITH MARK & ISOBEL" Although I am not that wild about the album "Ballad of the Broken Seas", I did not want to miss another chance to watch and listen to Mark perform live in Belgium, having skipped his passage a couple of months ago with The Twilight Singers in Brussels. It turned out to be a good decision to spend 22 euros on this concert, because it was a truly excellent gig.
28 January, 2007, Paradiso, Amsterdam, The Netherlands - Ballad of the Broken Seas Tour review and photos by Dylan
7 July, 2007, Roskilde Festival, Roskilde, Denmark with Soulsavers review by Rita Dabrowicz See Rita's pictures here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/realmofzaterra/page3/ SoulSavers featuring Mark Lanegan SETLIST: As one of the volunteers working for the Group 100 at the Roskilde festival, this year my work schedule was hectic. Nearly 12 hour shifts every day left me with a little time to enjoy the music. But even being almost overworked to death, I just had to see SoulSavers performance at The Arena on Saturday evening. After all, that was one of the few reasons why, I decided to spent my annual holidays in Denmark freezing in my tent at nights and drowning in mud during the day. Arena is the biggest of all six stages at the festival (the others being: Orange Stage, Astoria, Cosmopol, Odeon and Pavilion). It is the "closed" type of venue (tent) while the main stage of the festival (and also the festival's logo) the Orange stage is an open air type of venue. Arena can hold up to 60 000 people. When I entered the pits 30 minutes before the show, the venue was completely empty and I got the feeling the band is going to play for a really small audience. Unfortunately I was right. Less than 10 000 people showed for the gig and even if it sounds impressive to play in front of such a crowd, it is almost nothing by Roskilde standards, where concerts usually draw crowds three or four times bigger. The performing scene is also very tall, placed far away from the crowd (some 5 or 6 meters away from the press passage and crowd security stands) so there is no personal contact between the people and the band playing on stage. It would be much better if Mark Lanegan played at the Odeon, one of the smallest stages but having an intimate character and allowing both sides to actively participate in the show. SoulSavers at the Arena were totally separated from the audience and Mark's stage persona (or a lack of it) didn't help things either. They started playing almost ten minutes late because of technical problems they had with one of the mixing consoles (there were two hidden in the back). Besides Lanegan, the band consisted of a guitarist, rhythm guitarist, bass player, two DJ (Rich Machin and Ian Glover) and two backing female singers. Instrumental "Ask the dust" opened the show, but Mark Lanegan didn't appear on stage until the first few chords of second track "Ghost of you and me". He walked very slowly to the microphone, grabbed the stand, greeted the crowd with a single nod of his head and started to sing with his eyes closed. Entirely dressed in black but ghostly white, Mark seemed very tired or even ill. He didn't move at all, he was standing motionless, but his singing was flawless. Breathtaking versions of "Paper money" and "Kingdoms of rain" followed. The band also played "Jesus of nothing" and "Revival" which probably was the best moment of the show. Despite concentrating mostly on the studio material, Lanegan surprised everyone performing cover version of "All night long" by Junior Kimborough from the album "Sunday Nights: The Songs of Junior Kimbrough" and "Effigy" by Creedence Clearwater Revival. Mark left the stage right after "Revival" having spent there only 34 minutes, but the band played on. We had a chance to hear a truly unique instrumental medley of "Arizona Bay" and "Some velvet morning" that lasted almost 10 minutes. "Through my sail" performed only by the backing singers closed the set. Soulsavers didn't play any encores. I don't blame him for not coming back because the audience was simply rude to him throughout the gig. People kept talking about different things like the weather or leaking tents quite loudly and he even stopped singing in one moment during "Effigy" because it distracted him. Others kept whistling at him every ten seconds, shouted his name during songs or even made some requests. I heard some guys shouting "Shadow of a season" and "Whiskey for a holy ghost" all the time. Mark was visibly twitching every time someone whistled or shouted something. After the "Revival" he simply shook his head in disbelief and left the stage without saying goodbye. You could tell he was very angry and disappointed with the people. I can honestly say the Roskilde audience was not able to appreciate one of the best concerts of the festival and the one of the best shows I ever been to. Mark could recite tax declarations onstage and it would still sound good. But not only had the audience failed. The show was almost non existent in the festival media. Only a small review was printed in Roskilde newspaper on Sunday (and it was given 5 stars - the highest note for a concert). RockPhoto.dk, an official photo agency of the festival didn't send any journalist/photographer to the gig. When I wanted to buy an official print, I was told Mark's show was the only one not being covered by them (!!) Official merchandise store at the Arena was selling Machine Head CD's and t-shirts before and after Soulsavers concert, even despite the fact Machine Head played almost 3 hours earlier. It was the first time in almost 15 years that Mark played at Roskilde and I'm sure he will not remember it fondly (first time was in 1992 with The Screaming Trees). But I hope to see him play there sometime again. The good thing was that a group of people (two of them are members of www.onewhiskey.com forum, they asked to remain anonymous so I will not mention their names) left a package for Mark at Volunteer Lounge where I worked. It was taken to the backstage production office at the Arena where I was given a promise it would be passed onto Mark. There was a book about the festival entitled "Dreams and Drive" (out of print right now, it covers 25 years of the festival's history and mentions Screaming Trees' performance at the Orange Stage in 1992), two official t-shirts and two copies of 2007 Roskilde programme. I have also talked with V2 representatives in the media village: Mr. Benjamin and Mrs. Helen who also promised to make sure it was delivered to Lanegan. As of today, sadly, I haven't heard from them yet, but I'm looking forward any news from them. I only hope Mark has received the gift. There are people who truly appreciate what he's doing and will support him in good and bad times. Rita Dabrowicz
Soulsavers feat.
Mark Lanegan – Manchester Academy 3, UK, July 16 2007 First things first: the new smoking ban in England’s public buildings may be good for the nation’s health, but at least cigarette smoke used to cover up the collective pheromones of 300+ sweaty people crammed in a little room – it was like the worst long-haul flight you can imagine in there…. Anyway, onto the show. The band came on and tore straight into a full-blooded version of Ask The Dust, and as a statement of intent for the evening, it was perfectly judged. There was certainly room for subtlety during the evening’s proceedings (an incredible version of Kingdoms of Rain, for example), but for the most part it was transforming the sometimes-delicate sounds of It’s Not How Far You Fall… into something that little bit noisier. So by the time Lanegan took the stage for Ghosts of You & Me, the crowd were more than ready. And after that, it was great song after great song, with highlights being the aforementioned Kingdoms, a very low-down & dirty All Night Long (Mark’s contribution to the 2005 Junior Kimbrough tribute album Sunday Nights) and an uplifting cover of Creedence Clearwater Revival’s Effigy. The main set concluded with a heavy Jesus of Nothing, followed by an absolutely blinding version of Cabin Fever from their 2003 Tough Guys Don’t Dance album, spliced with Lee Hazelwood and Nancy Sinatra’s Some Velvet Morning, sung by the excellent backing singers (apologies for a general lack of names here, nobody was introduced). Doesn’t sound on paper like it could possibly work, but it did. Mark then returned for Revival, which could only have been better if it was much louder, and then he was off again with a quick wave to the crowd, leaving the band to belt out one final Creedence Cover – Midnight Special, with the backing singers taking a well-deserved cheer for their performance – before the lights went up for the last time. In all, an excellent night out, and testament to the versatility of the performers (and the songs themselves) that the studio tracks could be transformed so well to the full-blooded performance we were treated to last night. Miss them at your peril. And any council members that may have been lurking just in case Mr Lanegan contravened the Health Act (2006), tough. He didn’t spark up once. Setlist: Ask The Dust 31 July, 2007, Varieties, Leeds, UK with Isobel Campbell review by Isaac this was just an awesome experience. first of all, the leeds concert varieties music hall is just gorgeous. second of all, isobel campbell is even more gorgeous :D the concert was awesome..acoustics were perfect..every note of gravel in lanegan's voice came through. i grabbed a setlist after the show, so the exact songs played list was: Revolver Enc: so 22 songs and a 2 hour show - pretty
great. Lanegan didn't talk at all as usual -when someone yelled out
'hello' isobel campbell joked 'you won't get him to talk no matter
what' and mark smiled. but his voice sounded just perfect in this
beautiful venue, and so did isobel's - they got the levels so even
her whispers came across great, which is tough in a live setting.
really a magical evening with many goosebump moments - i coulda watched
them for another 2 hours. looking forward to the next album from this
partnership. 4 August, 2007, Dranouter Festival, Danouter, Belguim, with Isobel Campbell review by Kris Isobel Campbell &
Mark Lanegan
First off, the venue wasn't so great: a rather large tent with little intimacy and rather poor sound (especially Isobel was pretty low in the mix). As you can see from the set list, there were quite a few tracks from Lanegan's solo albums. I must say these were absolutely fantastic. The lapsteel on Carry on, and Isobel's vocal additions to that song were superb! Little Sadie and I'll Take Care of You were two other highlights for me personally. Circus is Leaving Town and Honey Child came later on in the set and didn't disappoint either. They closed the set with Wedding Dress from Lanegan's Bubblegum album. There was no encore unfortunately, but honestly the crowd didn't really deserve it. In total they played a solid 60 minute set, which is not too bad for a festival... They played one new track, but unfortunately I can't gather from the previously posted setlists which song it was. I'm also terrible at remembering lyrics, although "Is it any wonder..." was a repeating lyric. One cover song was played, which I'm also not familiar with. Setlist (may be out of order a bit): Revolver
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