Page Two

THE MICHIGAN DAILY

Wednesday, November 11), 19 /1

Page Two THE MICHIGAN DAILY Wednesday, November 1(2, I ~ I I


Cat Stevens on stage: Ceaseless tension

-Daily-Robert Wargo
LOVERS OF ROCK AND SOUL sleep, daydream, play cards and gossip during Sunday night's wait-
in at the Union for tickets to the Ike and Tina T urner and Jefferson Airplane concerts Nov, 19 and
20. Airplane tickets are sold out but tickets to Ike and Tina Turner are still available in the Union.
,Jack Elliott rambles ite Ark

By JIM, IRWIN
There were moments when it
was all a bit too much-the
swarms of pushy security
guards, the noisy kids behind
me and the six dollar seats
(thanx to hip capitalism). Step-
ping out of Ford Auditorium, I
suddenly found myself humming
strains of "Teenage Wasteland,"
and my fading image of Cat
Stevens, who had just perform-
ed, was of a teenybopper's Bob
Dylan.
But in all fairness to Cat
Stevens, last Tuesday night was
no time for clear judgments.
He's got admirable potential -
a voice with personality, and a
unique style of musical rhy-
thm, but that night he was a
bit "bummed out" as one of his
own promoters admitted to me
afterwards.
At the opening of his set, the
artist strode onto the stage
with the air of the relaxed con-
fident idol, and the audience
justsettled back and heard
him play "On the Road to Find
Out." Most of the technical fi-
nesse was there-good singing,
clean picking, and fair balance,
but it soon became evident that
something key was missing. The
song was not spirited, from the
heart; he seemed perturbed, dis-
satisfied. Indeed, after the first
song, he hassled a backstage
technician to turn up a knob
"so I can hear what I'm doing."
He mocked the guy a bit and
then apologized to the crowd.
Things were further aggra-
vated with the second song,
"Moonshadow." The song still
haunts me. "Oh If I ever lose
my hands/I won't have to work
no more . . . Did it take long
to find me I ask the faithful
light ..., I'm being followed by
a moonshadow . . ." Is this
supposed to be subtle artistry?
It's too obscure, too enigmatic,
too ambiguous; we're left with
nothing but twisted emptiness.
At this point he stopped a mo-
ment to say a few words about
how he wasn't going to say any

words at all for the rest of the
night because he was in a mood
for talking too much-and
added he was just saying this
to loosen up. We waited for him
to loosen up, and through the,
whole concert we waited and
waited . . .
But an atmosphere of ten-
sion had been engendered by his
moodiness. Waiting for him to
loosen up turned to waiting for
that moment when we'd jump
off into some primeval sea and
be carried away into blissful
eternity. The nearer we came
to this climax, his orgasm, the
more frustratingly, inevitably
unreachable it became.
Rapport even with his backup
men was lacking. Alun Davies,
playing guitar and singing sec-
ond, seemed to be into his own
thing the whole time; his ane-
mic voice supplied little more
than chaotic background to
Stevens' singing. Gerry Con-
way, on the other hand, is a
spirited, tasteful drummer.
Some of the finest moments
of the evening occurred in
"Hard-headed Woman," "Miles
from Nowhere," "Father and
Son," and "Changes." Cat Stev-
ens, at these heights, was not
playing songs but being songs;
passionately, intensely swaying
with them; belting out lyrics
THE ALLEY
330 MAYNARD
PINBALL
NEW MACHINES
11:30 A.M.-12 MIDNIGHT
5 BALLS PER GAME

with a Satchmo rasp, with rhy-
thm and syncopation in his
voice and guitar that jerked
your gut. These were moments
no recording studio could cap-
ture, when you say to yourself
'this is it' and start to sit on
the edge of your chair. But they
were so fleeting.
The orgasm that was awaited,
where -all tension would melt
away, never came. Indeed, it
was impossible.
After "Changes" he walked
off the stage and the audience
was left hanging, demanding
more. He returned, however,
with an encore that was a pe-

culiar and fitting twist of the
mood-an anticlimactic climax.
Gently, he seated himself at the
piano and sang "Sad Lisa," a
wispy, melancholy, deeply sooth-
ing song; and then, as if in a
doubletwist, he concluded pow-
erfully and movingly with "Bit-
terblue." Yes I've been moving
a long time on this travelling
ground/wishing hard to be free
of going round and round .
Don't pass me up oh bitterblue/
I've done all one man can do."
The need for orgasm was-some
how transcended, and the audi-
ence left feeling appeased and
satisfied, still loving Cat Stev-
ens.

TV & Stereo Rentals
$10.00 per month
NO DEPOSIT
FREE DELIVERY, PICK UP
AND SERVICE
CALL:
NEJAC TV RENTALS
662-5671

THE ALLEY CINEMA
330 MAYNARD
TONIGHT ONLY-WED., NOV. 10
ROCCO AND HIS BROTHERS
dir. LUCHINO VISCONTI, 1960
This masterpiece of neo-realist cinema won 22 inter-
national awards, including special jury prize-Ven-
ice Film Festival.
"'Roco and His Brothers' justifies almost any superlatives.
Call it an experience; call it a colossus among films and its
sheer impact is still not conveyed."
-Derek Hill, SIGHT & SOUND

Ibzi,
e 1.0

14

By ABBY MILLER
Jack Elliott made it to town
to play at the Ark Monday
night. He played a nice concert;
-different than what I've heard
from him before, a bit subdued.
But at the Ark, Jack standing
at floor level, with the audi-
ence seated around him on the
floor, it felt right. With his
Royal Ballet
here tonight
The Royal Winnipeg Ballet, the
first company in the English-
speaking world ever to be given a
regal title, will perform in the
Power Center tonight at 8 p.m..,
under the direction of Arnold.
Spohr.
Tonight's program will include
"Pas de Dix" choreographed by
George Balanchine with music by
Glazounov; "Sebastian," choreo-
graphed by John Butler with mu-
sic by Gian-Carlo Menotti; and
"Rondo," choreographed by John
Neumeier with music by Simon
and Garfunkel, Cornyshe, Bark,
Rabe, Mahlerand Mortenson.
This is the company's third visit
to Ann Arbor, under the auspices
of the University Musical Society.
During its 32-year history, the
Royal Winnipeg Ballet has re-
ceived numerous honors, includ-
ing a gold medal for "Best Com-
pany" at the International Dance
Festival in 1968.
The Place to Meet
INTERESTING People!
Babch Club
presents a
Lecture-Performance,
David Cornel
Constantinescu
playing BACH'S
ENGLISH & FRENCH
PARTITA SUITES
Mulligan Stew
Served After Program
THURSDAY-8 p.m.
So. Qd.-W. Lounge
Absolutely Everyone Invited.
No Musical Knowledge Needed.
Further lnfo.-764-7894
Bach Clubs Ads will henceforth
appear only in Thurs. DAILY

Stetson brim over his eyes, he
rapped and sang.
A lot of times people get so
much involved in Jack's per-
sonality and image that they
de-emphasize his music. To
many hard-core Jack Elliott
freaks anything he does is al-
right, because anything he does
is Jack Elliott-done in his own
distinctive style. Monday night,
however, it was easy to get into
his music. Many of his songs
were old stand-bys-"Me and
Bobbie McGee," "Tramp on the
Street" and old Dylan songs.
In the second set he got into
World War II songs like "Phi-
lippino Baby," and began sing-
ing lines from patriotic type
songs that somehow capture
what I imagine must have been
the gut feelings of a lot of
people-in the same way that
some country western songs to-
day capture the redneck para-
noia of a segment of our society.
But Jack doesn't put his songs
into any kind of psychological
setting. He just sings them in a
natural kind of way. Some of
them may be a bit corny, oth-
ers beautiful-he just lets each
stand for itself.
There's something about Jack
Elliott that comes across whe-
ther he's being outrageous or

singing gently. He can be rap-
ping about something absurd,
whispering a song, or rambling
on giving his New Orleans story
to people who've heard it a daz-
en times but still enjoy it and
learn a new line each time.
None of it seems out of char-,
acter. It's like Elliott is wrap-
ped up in holding on to a real-
ity he's created; a world of
friends and dogs and horses,
ships and trucks, songs that are
unpretentious in subject and
thought. There's a sense of a
world that omits things that
we'd all like to forget. We all
slipped away into a world of
Ramblin' Jack and his songs,
and dug it.

SHOWS AT 7 & 9:40

special price

15c

COMING THURS.-BATTLE OF ALGIERS
at AUD. B
sponsored by ann arbor film cooperative

Malvina
Reynolds
the grand lady
of the

As

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Read and Use Daily

Classifieds

The ALLEY presents
THURS.-FRI.-SAT-NOV. 11-12-13
BUDDY GUY
AND
JUNIOR WELLS
2 SHOWS EACH NIGH T--7:30-9:30
TICKETS $2.25 in advance at
Salvation Records (Maynard & S. Univ.)
PINBALL DOWNSTAIRS
OPEN FROM 11 :30 A.M. TO
12:00 MIDNIGHT EVERY DAY
NEW MACHINES

folk music world
has written hun-
dreds of songs like Little
Boxes (Ticky - Tacky),
What Have They Done
to the Rain, We Hate to
See Them Go, Alcatraz,
etc.
. her songs have
been recorded by Pete
Seeger, J u d y Collins,
J oa n Baez, Marianne
Faithful, the Limelight-
ers, The Seekers,. The
Byrds, the Dillards, and
herself (on four albums)

TONIGHT ONLY
POTEMKIN
Dir. S e r g e i Eisenstein,
1925. Eisenstein's famous
silent classic of revolt on
the battleship Potemkin.
The Odessa S t e p s se-
quence is the best known
example of Eistensteinian
expansion of t i m e. A
black and white film with
a red flog.
ARCHITECTURE
AUDITORIUM

R

U

1

ARM Michigan Film Society presents
Claude Chabrol's
IN COLOR

-t-I

of

L

a

Jacqueline Sassar
Jean-Louis

d (from Accident)
Stephone Audran

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NOVEMBER 12-20, 1971


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"a thing of beauty . . . delirious, decadent, delight-
ful to those with a taste for appearances as the
purest language of the cinema."
-Andrew Sarns, Village Voice

Emphasis

on

Women

I

Corner State & Liberty Streets
"Always the Finest in
Screen Entertainment"'
Shows at 1, 3, 5, 7, 9:05
WEDNESDAY IS LADIES DAY-
ONLY 75c from
1-6 P.M.
FOR LADIES-EVERY WED.!
HELD OVER!
2nd ZAPPA WEEK!

Nov. 13

SATURDAY

7:45, 9:30 p.m.

7:00 and 9:05

75Sc

Natural Science Auditorium--$1


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Nov. 12:

8:00 p.m., St. Andrews Church, 306 N. Division

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cINE AIi

BOB DYLAN
IN

WOMEN'S NIGHT
Multi-media slide show, Ann Arbor Dance Theater, Detroit Women's Street
Theater, & "The Woman's Play" by the Street Corner Society. Sponsored
by WONAC, for further information call Joyce Broughton, 971-6031
Nov. 13: 9:30 a.m.-6:00 p.m., Angell Hall, Aud. A
WOMEN'S ABORTION TEACH-IN
featuring guest speakers Florence Kennedy, Barbara Robbr, Jean King and
Janet Wings. Special interest Workshops, film and discussion. Sponsored by
WONAC, for further information call Joyce Broughton, 971-6031
Nov. 16: 11:00 a.m.-6:00 p.m., Michigan Union, 2nd floor
WOMEN'S INFORMATION FAIR
Sponsored by the Commission on Women to provide range. Easy access to
a broad range of information concerning women's groups, employment, and
ed. goals, in a festive setting, for further information call Sally Buxton, 763-
2203
Nov. 17: 8:00 p.m., Undergraduate Library, Multi-Purpose Room
NATALIE DAVIS
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Don't

Look

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