The first time I saw Suzanne Vega live was in 1987, during a sold-out two-night stand at Los Angeles' Wiltern Theater. Riding high off the surprising hit "Luka," a pop/folk gem about child abuse, the New York-based singer-songwriter was two albums into what appeared to be a very promising career. Vega had come on the scene in 1985 with her dazzling self-titled debut, a smart, sparkling collection of mostly acoustic tunes that earned her rave reviews. Her second effort, 1987's Solitude Standing was an equally impressive work and boasted a Top Ten hit in "Luka."

Fourteen years later, when Suzanne Vega took the stage Friday night (March 23rd) at Hollywood's Knitting Factory, the venue, albeit much smaller, was again sold out. However, the circumstances are much different, as Vega is now a veteran performer attempting what likely will be viewed as a comeback, seeing as how she hasn't released a studio collection in the States since 1996's Nine Objects of Desire.

Vega, who rarely plays live these days -- and plays the West Coast even less frequently -- explained early in this nearly two-hour set that she was in town visiting her father, who resides in Orange County, so she decided to do a couple of gigs to test out the new material. But it was an old favorite that she started off with; after taking the stage to a rousing ovation, she and bassist Mike Visceglia began the familiar refrain to "Marlene on the Wall," the superb lead single from Vega's eponymous debut. In fact, it took Vega six songs into the set to do the first test, with the lovely, folky "Penitant," a song whose deft wordplay recalled Elvis Costello. Vega seemed genuinely moved by the audience's enthusiastic response to the tune, as she thanked the crowd three times for their warm applause.

L.A. audiences are usually regarded as being cold and stiff, but in this instance Vega could not have found a better, more devoted crowd to try out the new stuff. Vega said early on that she would take requests from the crowd, since the room was small enough for her to see them. Following "Penitant," someone asked her to "tell us about Millie," referring to a short story from her collected writings that came out last year. She explained about the book, then apologized, saying, "This seems like a big tease now, since I don't have the book with me." Someone from in the front responded by handing her a copy of the book. Laughing, Vega said, "I can do the new stuff later. And the old stuff," then proceeded to add reading to the night's itinerary. Before handing the book back to the audience member, she inscribed it. That exchange pretty much summed up the bond between Vega and the audience. The intimate setting teamed with her long absence combined to make it feel like a reunion of friends rather a concert.

Much of the credit for that goes to Vega, who seems single-handedly capable of reintroducing the lost art of the troubadour to a large audience. Cool, poised and confident on stage, she was just as adept at spinning yarns as she was strumming narrative tales like the epic "Queen and the Solider" or the beautiful, wistful "Gypsy."

Vega mixed up the set very well, drawing on all five of her studio albums, as well as "Rosemary" and "Left of Center," the two previously unreleased songs on her best of collection, Tried and True. The highlights of her older selections were the soft "In Liverpool"; the sultry, jazzy "Caramel"; the a capella "Tom's Diner"; the menacing, hand-clap-and-bass-driven "Room Off the Street"; the aggressive, guitar-fueled "When Heroes Go Down"; and, of course, "Luka."

Vega and Vecsiglia performed five other new songs, ranging from the light "Solitaire," seemingly literally about playing the card game, to the edgy "Widow's Walk." It was hard to miss the sharp lyrics of the latter, which begins, "Consider me a widow, and I will tell you why boys/It's not the man, but the marriage that was drowned." Prior to playing the jangly "I'll Never Be Your Maggie May," a song Vega introduced as being a "very loose reply" to the Rod Stewart classic, she joked sarcastically, "This song is fiction. They all are." However, it would be an awfully big coincidence if all the new songs were fiction, given the recurring relationship disintegration theme and the fact that during Vega's five-year hiatus, her marriage to producer Mitchell Froom ended.

But the most poignant of the new tracks was "A Song in Red and Grey," written from the perspective of a former lover meeting the man's daughter. A beautiful, moving number, in which Vega sings, "Was I the name you could never pronounce/Or did I even figure at all?/All of this happened before she was born/Did I shadow her pencil marks on the wall," it shows that Vega is ready to recapture her place among music's most thoughtful and articulate artists.

STEVE BALTIN
(March 27, 2001)