We’ll get on to the brilliance of Regina Spektor in a moment. But first a question: why are pop music fans treated so abysmally? The afternoon of Spektor’s second sold-out show at the Royal Festival Hall, the venue tweeted that she would be on stage at 7.30 p.m. She actually took to the stage a few minutes past 8 o’clock.
Spektor was absolutely magnificent once she did come on. She filled the room with charisma, charm and wit
If that were a one-off, so be it. But anyone who goes to a lot of shows is familiar with how malleable the concept of stage-time is in pop music. Lana Del Rey had her Glastonbury set cut short because she was so late coming on – apparently she was having her hair done. It’s maddening. Why can they not meet their call times? No one going to see The Motive and the Cue is kept waiting because Mark Gatiss is playing Candy Crush in his dressing room. You don’t go to see an orchestra and sit happily past the appointed start time because the first violin is FaceTiming their mum. Even football, an industry that has long treated those who pay to watch it with complete contempt, starts its matches on time and, if they kick off late, lets you know why. But pop concerts? Hey, sheep, you can just sit and bloody wait, because you don’t matter.
So it was a good job Spektor was absolutely magnificent once she did come on. It was just her on piano or keyboard, and – for a scant few songs – a guitarist, but she filled the room with charisma, charm and wit. I didn’t begrudge a second of the two hours she was on stage, just the 33 minutes she should have been but wasn’t.
Spektor emerged out of New York’s anti-folk scene at the turn of the century, but all she really shared with the Moldy Peaches or Jeffrey Lewis was a fondness for whimsy.
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