Homeland

“Welcome to the American night.” A hypnotic voice issuing a wake-up call, with soothing melodic strings and synthesizer to raise the alarm. Laurie Anderson’s performance of Homeland at the Boston Opera House tonight lightly chided the audience for failing to respond to their times while offering too few opportunities to even respond to her. A piece late in the show laments the loss of the art of conversation, but she never engages the audience and uses instrumental bridges between independent pieces to suppress applause. While she said much that needs to be said—condemning the suspension of freedom in the name of freedom—she seems unlikely to rouse anyone to action. She cites Thomas Paine’s Common Sense, and one of her most resonant lines is when she echoes Paine’s question of whether it makes sense for an island to rule a continent and asks whether it makes sense now for a country to rule the world. However, her repeating lyrics do not inspire deeper reflection; there are no startling images to follow her beautiful opening story about the endlessly soaring birds from before the world was created.

I was thrilled to see her in concert, and this show was the one I have wanted to see for many years: a return to many of the forms from her United States work that I’ve loved since I first heard the recordings 20 years ago, a live performance by an artist whose magical voice truly captivates me both in story and in song, and a thought-out political statement that extended beyond a quick protest song or short rant. She succeeded in all of those, and I would be delighted to see her perform Homeland again tomorrow or next month or next year. I’m sure that I’m asking too much for her to also encourage change, when her style is more ironic comment. But when those endlessly soaring birds first encountered land, surely that opened up possibilities beyond flight?