Suzanne Vega, Edinburgh review: 'One of New York's songwriting greats'

Suzanne Vega, Usher Hall, Edinburgh ★★★★

Although she was proudly announced over the PA as being “from New York City”, and her delicate encore cover of her old friend Lou Reed’s Walk on the Wild Side emphatically marked out a place for Suzanne Vega alongside her home city’s songwriting greats, an anecdote midway through the set also highlighted British and Canadian connections.

With an apology to anyone who’d heard the tale already, Vega introduced Gypsy as being about her first romance, a boy from Liverpool who she met at summer camp. They bonded, she says, over Leonard Cohen. From that point on it was difficult not to hear the spiritual connection between Vega and Cohen, which isn’t immediately obvious due to the difference in vocal texture.

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The comparison was found not just in Gypsy’s tender longing, but also in the musical scene-painting of Marlene on the Wall and in the dangerous sexuality of 99.9F°. These songs opened the set, a stripped-back affair featuring just the black-clad Vega on acoustic guitar and Gerry Leonard on growling electric, with cellist Stephanie Winters adding new textures later.

The song In Liverpool revisited thoughts of that boy she’d known, just as the new song Galway speculated on past romantic choices. Forty years after her breakthrough, this sense of dialogue with her own life permeated the set, from the early hits Left of Center, Luka and Tom’s Diner (the latter a clear spiritual successor to Walk on the Wild Side, in this prowling, stripped-back form) to songs from the new album Flying with Angels, her first in nearly a decade.

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These included the gorgeous title track; Speaker’s Corner, a song about free speech which she started years ago and had hoped would no be longer relevant; and Chambermaid, an ambitious adaptation/rewrite of Bob Dylan’s I Want You from a female perspective, which he graciously approved. Like Cohen and Reed, Dylan is the kind of artist Vega deserves to be thought of alongside.

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