4 March 2025
Live review – Sogar ein Ausflug in Blues-Gefilde war drin (A Foray Into Blues Territory) (English translation follows German original). “Munter wechselte McQuaid im Verlauf des Abends zwischen akustischer und elektrischer Gitarren, hier und da entlockte sie auch Trommel und aparte Töne.” (McQuaid switched deftly between acoustic and electric guitars, occasionally moving to piano and percussion to create distinctive sounds.)
Thanks to Alison Moffat-McLynn for the translation below!
A Foray Into Blues Territory
Singer/songwriter Sarah McQuaid delighted the audience at her concert at Dixiebahnhof. One song even transformed the venue into a kind of Noah’s Ark.
Dresden – Alongside Finnish, Chinese and Japanese, German has a notorious reputation as one of the tricker, if not downright difficult, languages of the world. Take gendered nouns, for instance. Sometimes the same word has one gender during the day and another in the evening – like “der Weizen” (wheat) and “das Korn” (grain), which switch to “das Weizen” (wheat beer) and “der Korn” (grain schnapps) as sundowner time approaches. Singer Sarah McQuaid, born in Spain, raised in the USA and today living in Cornwall, England, used to be confused to hear her German audiences laughing when she described her husband as Irish, or “Ire” with a long I; one slip into a short I, and he promptly became “irre”, or “crazy”. At her concert, most of her song introductions were in English, with the occasional pre-prepared text in German. The audience learnt that “gemütlich” (cosy, homely) is her second favourite German word after the much-used “genau” (precisely, absolutely).
Stories and anecdotes like these brought a touchingly personal and human note to Sarah McQuaid’s concert at Dixiebahnhof. In keeping with this picture, at the end of the concert she thanked all the members of the nonprofit organisation by name and omitted nobody, right down to the bar staff and the team making the rolls and snacks in the kitchen. Immediately after McQuaid’s encore, a visibly moved member of the staff informed the audience that it was the first time in the long history of the “cultural centre in North Dresden” that an artist had expressed such personal thanks.
The concert opened with an instrumental on electric guitar entitled “Day of Wrath”, in a mood that recalled the first bars of The Doors’ “The End” or the rising chord sequence of the prelude to Wagner’s “Rheingold”. As the evening progressed, McQuaid switched deftly between acoustic and electric guitars, occasionally moving to piano and percussion to create distinctive sounds. The programme offered a wealth of carefully considered songs and tunes. “Slowing Down” is a remarkable excursion into the blues as a nod to the singer’s youth in Chicago, a city famous for its unique blues style.
In one song, explained by McQuaid as inspired by the miaowing of a cat, she asked the audience to imitate said animal as well as screech like a pheasant and echo various other animals. The audience joined in with a will and clearly had fun following McQuaid’s instructions, turning Dixiebahnhof into a mini Noah’s Ark. The song “If We Dig” came to her in a sandpit as she watched her young son digging a bigger and bigger hole. Any listeners interpreting “Don’t dig deeper, it could get dangerous” as a warning about overweening human arrogance, including towards the natural world, would be pretty close to the mark.
Today that son is grown. And lo and behold, he is a qualified archaeologist and still digging away, hopefully with his mother’s warning in his ears. Ethereal notes were struck in “Tug of the Moon”, again inspired by a newspaper article on the Moon’s gravitational pull, which is causing gradual and minimal slowing of the Earth’s rotation.
McQuaid moved to the piano for “Fake Plastic Trees”, a cover of one of Radiohead’s big hits from 1995 and a profound reflection on the artificiality of a world made of plastic. The lyrics capture Radiohead singer Thom Yorke’s thoughts about the Canary Wharf district in East London; plans to transform its derelict docklands on the banks of the Thames into a business quarter stalled, and for a long time the area was occupied only by artificial plants. “In the Pines”, an old folk song from the US, was a favourite of McQuaid’s mother.
Also known as “Black Girl”, “The Longest Train I Ever Saw” and “Where Did You Sleep Last Night”, the song has been extended, varied and reinterpreted countless times by artists from Joan Baez to Dolly Parton and even Nirvana. Its lyrics reference a mysterious long train, which may be a symbol of time itself in solid form; a decapitated body as testimony to a violent death; and a constant question of where the singer’s love spent last night, and constant return to the dark, impenetrable forest: “In the pines, in the pines / where the sun never shines.”