Live In New York | 
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| Artist: Laurie Anderson
Label: Nonesuch
Category: Music
List Price: $22.98
Buy New: $14.14
You Save: $8.84 (38%)
New (22) Used (12) from $6.74
Rating:  15 reviews
Sales Rank: 73288
Format: Live
Media: Audio CD
Discs: 2
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.3
Dimensions (in): 5.5 x 4.7 x 0.5
MPN: 79681
UPC: 766481763826
EAN: 0766481763826
ASIN: B0000668N9
Release Date: May 21, 2002
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: Expedited shipping available
Condition: NEW ! Still in factory sealed shrink wrap from Nonesuch Records. Ships same day/next day.
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| Tracks:
Disc 1
| • | Here with You | | • | Statue of Liberty | | • | Let X=X | | • | Sweaters | | • | My Compensation | | • | Washington Street | | • | Pieces and Parts | | • | Strange Angels | | • | Dark Angel |
Disc 2
| • | Wildebeests | | • | One Beautiful Evening | | • | Poison | | • | Broken | | • | Progress | | • | Animals | | • | Life on a String | | • | Beginning French | | • | O Superman | | • | Slip Away | | • | White Lily | | • | Puppet Motel | | • | Love Among the Sailors | | • | Coolsville |
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| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.com
Laurie Anderson scored an improbable hit in the early `80s with the atmospheric "O Superman," a song that appears near the end of this exhaustive two-disc live set. Despite a new arrangement, the track sounds just as entrancing as it did 20 years ago, if only because the 90 minutes leading up to it features some of the most complex, dreamlike, and unnerving music ever produced. But given that these concerts were recorded just days after the September 11 attacks in New York, the effect is all the more chilling--just try to hold back the goose bumps when Anderson sings, "Here come the planes / They're American planes / Made in America." The air of intensity is palpable throughout Live at Town Hall, as Anderson pulls out vintage pieces like "Let X=X" and "Strange Angels," each one taking new shape and meaning in the process. It is a harrowing listen. --Aidin Vaziri
Album Description
The set list captured on this specially-priced 2CD recording includes ten songs from Life on a String, plus 2002 arrangements of earlier songs from her catalog, including 'Let X=X', 'Coolsville', 'Strange Angels' and the classic 'O Superman' - one of the great compositions of the last two decades. Recorded live at Town Hall / Sept. 19-20, 2001. Trifold digipak.
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| Customer Reviews:
Mesmerizing and moving April 23, 2008
cfm1982 (nyc)
Laurie Anderson concert in NYC recorded just days after the 9/11 tragedy. Great quality audio and a beautiful and diverse mix of Laurie songs from over the decades. The highlight, as other users have mentioned, is O Superman. A prophetic song first recorded in the early 80s, it becomes even more important and moving in the context of the 9/11 tragedy. This recording of O Superman is worth the entire price of the CD. Listen to it and recall that it was laid down mere days after the attacks. It is the most chilling performance I have ever heard. "And I've got a message...to give to you...here come the planes." I can think of nothing else that so convincingly faces the fear and sadness, but also the inevitability, of the tragic 9/11 attacks. If you can listen to it without crying and asking what America has come to, then please hold out your right index and middle fingers and place them on the underside of the left wrist to see if you are still alive.
Stellar! March 10, 2005
M. Kobb (California)
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
I've seen Laurie Anderson live on a half-dozen occasions, and the shows are always somehow new.
This show is no different. Unlike most of her shows in recent years, this one heavily features her earlier, most-quirky material. But, that material is re-conceived for the live band. Although updated and punched up a bit, it's still true to its original spirit.
The results are wonderful. If you enjoy the earlier albums like Big Science, you'll love hearing their formerly-sparse arrangements augmented with a really great live band. Some of these songs haven't been performed live for many years, and hearing them now is a treat.
I have to agree with the Amazon reviewer and a couple of others: "O Superman" is clearly the climax of the show. The audience's reaction -- surprised and then delighted -- to the opening of O Superman fading in as if sent from long ago is exhilarating.
Knowing the conext of this show and hearing Laurie sing, voice barely controlled, about the "American planes", gives me chills every time I listen. To think that this song was written nearly 20 years before the events of 9/11 is eerie. Extremely powerful stuff.
Love May 13, 2003
jason@themagictheatr (CA)
5 out of 10 found this review helpful
A maximum of 1,000 words is not enough to do justice to one of the most glorious artists of our time.
Attending the event April 23, 2003
7 out of 7 found this review helpful
Playing this CD makes the listener feel they are attending the event itself. The music itself is amazing right through, as are the spken word pieces. There is an intimacy, some intensity, some discomfort but some delight too, for example when the anecdote ('Beginning French') about French 'traffic testers' gives way discreetly to the intro of 'O Superman.' But the intensity is felt most when Laurie refers to 9/11 and her reactions, playing that evening, the sense of an entirley changed world. Her songs fit. My favourites here are O Superman, which I knew from the 8os and Strange Angels, which I didn't know before.
The discomfort comes in when you've listened all the way through and get to O Superman on Disc 2, when the references to 'Amercian planes, made in America' are heard.
This is a good place to go for a live compilation of Laurie Anderson songs.
The Best Concert I've Ever Seen March 27, 2003
troy (Nova Scotia, Canada)
4 out of 7 found this review helpful
Firstly, I have yet to hear this album, but I did see her show In Toronto on September 13th, 2001, and I have to say that it was aesthetically and artistically the most incredible concert that I've ever attended. The quality of her performance (and band!) was superb, and the themes that she's been weaving for all of these years really came together. For me, peak of the show was the transition from O Superman to Pieces and Parts: very emotional, new layers of resonance to say the least. She was visibly shaken at the "American Planes" line, almost as though she had just realized what she was singing. The show ran from the quiet and delicate (White Lily) to surprisingly (and successfully) noisy, loud and aggressive (My Compensation), to arty and humourous (distributing pencils and papers for the audience to draw with and pass back after the show). She's consistently been the most interesting American artist for the past 20 years. Content-wise, she has all the bases covered: musicality, intelligence, technique, experimentation, insight, wit, and grace.
Inspired.
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