The walls were shaking

by Jeremy Gilbert
Melody Maker
January 24, 1970

Joni is captivating at the modernist concert hall beside the Thames.

"Her voice soaring and plummeting over that open-tuned guitar"

JONI MITCHELL MUST love England to the same extent that England loves Joni Mitchell. This fact was implicit throughout the whole of her two-hour concert at the Festival Hall on Saturday. The walls were still shaking 10 minutes after Joni had taken her second encore. Such was the greed and expectation, that hardly a person had left the hall when she finally returned for a farewell acknowledgement, and the audience rose en masse.

With great warmth and presence, the Canadian songstress appeared for the first set in a long red dress, her voice soaring and plummeting over that aggressive and characteristically open-tuned guitar. After three numbers Joni moved to the piano and captured the audience completely by the nature of "He Played Real Good For Free", a recent composition, which reflects her environmental change. She closed a well-balanced first half repertoire with the famous "Both Sides Now".

Next Joni appeared in blue and embarked on a much longer set which included "Galleries", "Marcie" and Michael From Mountains", and with each song she drew the audience further into her. An outstanding Richard Farina-style rock number, "They Paved Paradise And Put Up A Parking Lot", and the next Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young single, "Woodstock", prefaced the finale, which was an event in itself - Dino Valente's great song about brotherhood.


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