Canadian Press - September 28th, 1996
"DE BURGH'S TALENTS EXTEND FAR BEYOND LIMITS OF STAGE"
BY STEPHEN EWART OF THE CANADIAN PRESS Irish singer Chris De Burgh figures he has toured Canada 20 times in his career, and it's clear he has picked up more than just a bunch of stamps on his passport. De Burgh's knowledge of this country is disarming. Winnipeg's Portage and Main is the coldest street corner in North America, he notes impressively. He then recalls visiting Calgary during an oil boom in the early 1980's and being awed by the construction. He returned during a during a bust a couple of years later and found those same glass towers half empty. Then it's on to politics. "I was there once and there was a real row between Alberta and the federal government over who controlled the oil rights." De Burgh says with a lilting brogue. Wow! You might not want to play Trivial Pursuit with this man. I'm not a performer who turns up in a city and says "Where the hell am I?" De Burgh says in an interview from his home in Dublin. "I take pains to find out where I am, what happens there, what people are thinking about, whether there's an economic boom. I take things on board." The modern troubador began his latest acoustic tour of Canada last week in Edmonton and hits Ottawa Saturday night at the Civic Centre Theatre. The only musical accompaniment for De Burgh's rich vocals are his guitar or piano for half the show. A Hungarian string quartet comes on stage for the second half. It's De Burgh's first Canadian tour in seven years. The inspiration for this type of concert was the Beautiful Dreams album he recorded last year with full orchestra. Beautiful Dreams-which includes new versions of his work and songs by the Beatles, Roy Orbison and Elvis Presley-has quietly gone gold in Canada. Taking an orchestra on a world tour is prohibitively expensive so DeBurgh settled on the quartet. He says the shows in the smaller venues are a welcome break from his days of being "just a dot in the distance" for his audiences at huge stadium concerts. "It focuses enormous attention on the lyrics and the way it's sung and the passion with which a song is sung," he says. "When you're solo you're totally vulnerable and it creates a tremendous sense of intimacy and drama." De Burgh insists it isn't a case of an artist being self-indulgent. He will perform Spanish Train, Patricia the Stripper, Don't Pay the Ferryman and of course Lady in Red.