Linda Eder

Halfway through a very busy weekend, I got to see Linda Eder at the Palace Theatre. This was the 5th time I've seen her and she gets better every time. I was in the second row, left aisle seat of the center section and it was amazing. She looks very different up close, but not in a bad way. An interview in the Times revealed that she is (gasp) 46 (and here I thought she was in her mid-30's based on her album cover pictures), and she's starting to show signs of maturing, but she's doing so very gracefully. Her face has more character up close and it really works for her. The best part though, was that every time she goes for the high notes, she pulls the mic back so she's not overwhelming the sound system, and at those moments, we in the first few rows heard her actual voice, and not the voice coming through the speakers, and what a voice it is. She did a wide range of material, with something from just about every album, except for Gold (although the two selections from her first CD, Someone Like You and Vienna, are better known from and also found on, other, later CD's). She did a lot of songs I haven't heard her do live, including Almost Like Being In Love, This Time Around, and Bridge Over Troubled Water, which opened the second half of the show. She did a lot of the Judy Garland songs from the new CD, and for her encore, instead of doing If I Had My Way, which has become her standard, she did I'm Always Chasing Rainbows/Over The Rainbow, and OMG, it was so fabulous. It was so delicate and beautiful, it was the perfect ending to the night. She said that she's working on a new album, and it's going to have more of a pop sound (I'm guessing like Gold), but the only song she said for sure that will be on it is If I Could, and after having heard her do it twice now in concert, I'm so glad to finally be able to have it permanently recorded. She also said that she pays attention to a lot of the internet chatter and tries to incorporate the feedback she gets and accommodate requests for songs, so Linda, if you're reading, I don't know what prompted me to think of this, but I would love to hear your take on Rainy Days and Mondays. It's my favorite song by my favorite group/singer and I think it's perfectly suited to Linda's voice. A lot of Carpenters songs have become standards, and they sang a lot of standards, so I think this could really be a match made in heaven. Although the time flew by way too fast (by the time we got to intermission, exactly one hour after she started, I could have sworn she'd only been on stage for 10 minutes), it was a wonderful evening, and I'm glad I braved the cold and the hassle of my hectic schedule to go see her. I can't wait for the sixth time!