Successful benefit concerts need to showcase big commercial names. Otherwise how could they draw top bucks for their cause?
But the annual Tibet Freedom benefit concert has managed to fill Carnegie Hall for 15 years now with cult stars who have far more creative power than commercial clout.
As always, last night’s version featured a rich boutique of emerging names – including The Black Keys, Nellie McKay and the one-named wonder Antony – along with some big names who come out every year to bring attention to the plight of the Tibetan people, including Patti Smith, Lou Reed and Philip Glass.
To add a dash of drama, last night’s event saw the resurrection of Ray Davies. The Kinks’ leader was scheduled to make the 2004 event but was still recovering from a gunshot wound sustained in a mugging in New Orleans.
Davies showed the most pluck during the 2-1/2-hour show. “Most people play their hits,” he said. “I’m going to play some of my flops.”
He went on to perform five numbers from his criminally underappreciated 1968 album “The Village Green Preservation Society.”
In fact, Davies did offer a hit – an exuberant version of his anthem “Lola.”
The Black Keys gave the show a sexy edge with their darkly erotic blues.
McKay provided the quirk factor. Her ballads painted her as a cracked answer to Cole Porter
The largest portions of the evening, however, maintained a contemplative tone. As usual, eight Buddhist monks opened the night with chanting.
The androgynous Antony lent his angelic tones to a song of death and transformation, while Lou Reed bestowed a graceful take on “Perfect Day.”
The closing artist, Patti Smith, underscored the evening’s most serious motifs – rebirth, in “Ghost Dance”; hope, in “Peaceable Kingdom,” and resilience, in “People Have the Power.”
It was enough to make you believe we do.
