Jane Birkin - Barbican, 21 February 2009
Only Jane Birkin could dress like David Brent and get away with it. Yes, even an ill-fitting waistcoat and skew-whiff tie seem effortlessly cool if they're paired with artlessly rolled shirt sleeves, casually draped braces and an adorably rumpled pixie cut.
The eternal waif and holder of the Gainsbourg flame wasn't sure whether to speak English or French to the Barbican audience, so she ended up with a bit of each. After forty years in Paris, her French is no longer the muddled gab that inspired Serge Gainsbourg's Pas Long Feu. Yet her English remains anachronistically Celia Johnson-proper.
The songs were mostly French, and mostly Serge's - Ford Mustang, Ex-Fan des Sixties, and Sous le Soleil Exactement started as she meant to go on. That tiny, tremulous voice should by rights be a passé ex-novelty, but it still sounds fresh after forty years, encompassing humour and tenderness and wistful longing. The classical solemnity of the four piece band - piano, cello, double bass and acoustic guitar - benefitted some songs more than others.
For Yesterday Yes a Day, she abandoned the stage and wandered amongst her adoring audience toting a microphone in one hand and a lightbulb-budded umbrella in the other. A magical inspiration that converted any remaining doubters.
There was a little - just a little - politics with Jane's own song Aung San Suu Kyi. And interleaved between the Gainsbourgs were Beth Gibbons's Strange Melody, Tom Waits's Alice and a few whimsical self-penned numbers from her latest album, Enfants d'Hiver. But as ever it was the Gainsbourg that everyone wanted most. As she launched into Je suis venu te dire que je m'en vais, it seemed the evening was about to end, but, no, she managed Les P'tits Papiers and a couple more before leaving.
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