Article 15872 in rec.music.misc:
From: cscbrkac@charon.unm.edu (Lazlo Nibble)
Subject: Fear and Loathing at the Tiffany Concert
Date: 11 Jul 88 05:44:10 GMT
Organization: Studio Nibble -- One Tree Hill, New Mexico
Lines: 87

Tiffany in Concert, Sunday July 10th, Paolo Soleri Amphitheatre, Santa Fe, NM

First off, I should point out that I don't make a habit of listening to
Tiffany.  Let's make that crystal clear.  The reason I went to this concert is
that my pal Skids offered me a ticket in exchange for a ride up to Santa Fe for
the show, and that this point in my life, I'm not so picky in my choices of
entertainment that I'm willing to turn down a free concert ticket, no matter
who's playing.  So basically what we had was a couple guys checking the show
out for lack of anything better to do on a Sunday afternoon.  When you
approach a concert from that direction, it's hard to really be disappointed
by it, which may be the only reason we weren't.

What Tiffy's got is essentially a big nationally touring cover show.  Nearly
half the show was covers, including a long medley at about the midpoint which
was almost completely written before The Divine Miss T. was born: "Stand By
Me," "Don't Be Cruel," "That'll Be The Day" . . . you get the drift.  Other
than covers she sang a few generic-sounding tracks that may or may not be from
her current album (which I've never heard and don't plan to) . . . only one
number really stood out, a decent ballad towards the end of the show called
"Hold Me There" (if I understood the pitiful sound system correctly) what
managed to get our attention and hold it for a few minutes.

As far as stage presence, she didn't have much.  There are actually a couple of
decent reasons for this: one of that the Paolo Soleri Amphitheatre is a pretty
small venue.  After you get all the instruments and amps and speakers on the
stage, there's not much room for singer to walk around, let alone deliver the
pert and perky performance that we, as discerning concertgoers, naturally come
to expect.

Secondly, this was a Sunday afternoon show, with an audience that was nothing
but teenagers and younger, with a few parent thrown in for color . . . Skids
and I were the oldest people in the place who weren't dragging kids behind us,
and for that reason if no other, the security boys were keeping a close eye on
us.  The Hot Young Slut look of Tiffany's recent posters, while it would have
kept *us* entertained (and possibly caused the sort of riot among the
thirteen-to-fifteen-year-old males in the audience that we were quietly hoping
would occur for most of the afternoon), wouldn't have gone over too well with
the mommies and daddies out in the audience.  And they, after all, were the
ones paying for the tickets.

So what we got was an extremely subdued performance from an extremely
chaste-looking Tiffany -- and as my pal Skids commented, "you can't even have
an erotic FANTASY about *that*!"  Nobody threw half-empty bottles of Miller
and nobody started a pit.  No Hell's Angels dragged a twelve-year-old out of
the audience and whaled on him with pool cues.  Tiffany didn't stumble onstage
dressed in a studded leather halter-top with a fifth of Jack Daniels in one
hand and a loaded .45 in the other, tell the entire audience to fuck off, and
start to take pot-shots at the hot-dog stand.  It just wasn't that kind of
concert.  In fact, as far as we could tell, Tiffy was completely sober.

The backup band was pretty decent, and put in a solid show . . . around halfway
through, just before the oldies medley, Tiffany disappeared backstage for
around ten minutes (from where we sat, we could see her sitting around on her
pert little butt, looking bored and -- can you believe it, after twenty lousy
minutes -- tired!) and the band delivered as respectable a cover of Bob Seger's
"Shakedown" as any cover of that particular song is likely to be.  The band did
a great job with the material they had, it's just that so much of the material
they had was schlock.  All of Tiffany's non-cover material is written by her
manager, George Tobin, and is little more than run-of-the-mill throwaway top 40
stuff.  And the covers, well, it's really hard to screw up a Beatles song.

My impression of Tiffany herself?  The kid's got a decent voice, but she's not
going anything worthwhile with it at the moment.  Unless she makes some
breakthroughs (dump her manager, learn to add whole numbers) she's going to be
yesterday's news VERY quickly.  Malls, small amphitheatres, and smaller outdoor
music festivals are about all that she's ready to play right now . . . at
bigger venues, maybe as an opening act.  No way can she headline anything big.
Even with half the songs being covers, she barely had enough material to fill
56 minutes.

The fourteen-year-old crowd Tiffany's most popular with now changes musical
affectations (yes, I'm using that word correctly, look it up) more frequently
than they change their underwear.  That she couldn't fill the 1500-or-so seat
Paolo Soleri is a sign that her popularity is already slipping some, at least
among the few fourteen-year-olds who can afford the $18.50 for a ticket to one
of her concerts.  I wouldn't have paid to see her before, and wouldn't now,
though I wouldn't mind seeing her at a college festival or something where
there was a lot of beer.

I look at it this way -- if when you die they measure up your life against some
Cosmic "THINGS TO DO" list, and seeing Tiffany live is on that checklist, Skids
and I are covered.  An hour of seeing Tiffany live is better than roasting in
hell for all eternity.  Though I guess how much better depends on how you keep
score.

--
Lazlo Nibble (cscbrkac@charon.unm.edu)