As Melanie Concerts Go, It Was A Good One

by Bill Rice, The Troy Record, June 19, 1972

(editor’s note – pretty sure Janey & Dennis were the opener, but not confirmed)

5,000 At SPAC

Singer Melanie Safka had a lot of making up to do with her local fans as she strode across the stage to begin her concert at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center Saturday evening. Several months ago, in a now infamously poor concert with Tom Rush at Siena College, Melanie walked off in the middle of her third song complaining of a bad throat.

At Saratoga a year ago she was an hour late for the concert and the same was true ayear earlier in an appearance at the Colonie Summer Theater.

On Saturday evening, even though she was a little late again, Melanie came to sing, and while there were some things we didn’t like about the concert, these didn’t relate Melanie’s performance or the amount of effort she put forth. As Melanie concerts go, this was a good one.

Audience Control

Few singers dare to perform all alone on the sprawling SPAC stage and some who have tried have probably found themselves wishing they were back in a cozy coffee house where things are more intimate. Miss Safka is one of just a handful of singers who can single-handedly, without even the support of a back up bassist, keep the SPAC amphitheater and lawn in tow. Most of the time anyway.

Melanie’s guitar is her band and she gets more mileage out of it than anyone we have heard since Theodore Bikel was last heard as a folk singer in the area.

Melanie makes up for lack of other performers on stage with variety in her own performance. The formula goes something like this. She toys with the audience at the beginning of a song with a wispy, sometimes cracking voice, sometimes sounding coy or cute, at times going into a thin falsetto with perhaps a few “la de dums” or “tra la las” thrown in.

She breaks out suddenly with wild strumming on her gultar and her singing builds gradually into full-throated shout. From the loudest of tones she will suddenly retreat to a double pianissimo that can scarcely be heard.

At the climax of her songs she is tapping both feet alternately as though pumping on imaginary organ, and with long brown hair whipping around her face her performance becomes almost frantic—but it works.

Offstage Melanie seemed more relaxed and contented than she was a year ago when we felt high-geared promotional tactics of her new agent were starting to get to her.

She sipped a glass of red wine in her dressing room after the show and talked congenially with a handful of press.

She hopes to record her next album at some secret retreat in the desert, she said, and after that may give up concerts for a while in order to get her thoughts together. After talking with the press she went outside to sign autographs for eager fans wailing at the stage door.

Attendance Down

About 5,000 attended Melanie’s concert on Saturday, about 3,000 less than last year. We don’t think diminishing popularity is the reason for the smaller turnout. Missing was last years expensive advertising campaign with large ads appearing even in The New York Times.

Good performance notwithstanding, Melanie didn’t have her SPAC audience completely with her all of the time in Saturday’s concert. Strong response was evident with her better-known songs, things like Psychotherapy, Beautiful People (written when she was only 15), Peace Will Come, Ring the Living Bell and Lay Down, but considerable restlessness was evident in the back fringes of the auditorium and on the lawn during some of her lesser-known songs as well as on some new ones.

Amplification of Melanie’s voice could have been better. From where we sat it was often distorted. Like Melanie, we were puzzled as to why anyone would bring fireworks to one of her concerts and shoot them off during her songs.

The Post-Star, June 17, 1972