Follow us on the Wildwood Tour 2007 in real time

I’ve been obsessing about the upcoming release of the new Barbra Streisand album: Live In Concert 2006. Yes, I know it was released in the US in early May, but the international release date has been pushed to 28 May! Apart from watching video clips of the concert online, devouring any little snippet that’s available, I’ll just to make do with the fact that the Australian release will be in a special digipak edition. I’m rather miffed that they’ve decided to release bonus tracks on various US editions, but I hope I’ll get to hear them in the near future. From the reviews that I’ve read, the mix has been of superior quality, the concerts having been recorded on 96- tracks (wow!), so you hear every single instrument in the orchestra. Judging by the preview tracks I’ve heard online, Barbra sounds great as always, and I must, she is one of the few singers who makes me all teary-eyed when I listen to her. It’s magic, it just hardly happens with anybody else. I’m all vehklempt! Anyway… looking forward to hearing the 2006 concert recording soon!

Judy Small is a singer/songwriter I had the opportunity to watch live at the Cobargo Folk Festival in late Fabruary 2007. She has become a favourite of mine since, and it’s astounding that she has a career that spans more than thiry years.

What I got from her performances at Cobargo was all that everyone has loved about her. She is funny, witty, deeply political, and yet, she doesn’t tell her stories in anger, but from a perspective where most of us come from: love. She takes us back to the fundamentals and asks, “why all the fighting?”

I absolutely love her, and although she has a full-time job away from singing now, I look forward to seeing her at a Melbourne gig in June 2007.