Rickie Lee Jones has returned to Australia after a 30-year absence and following an aborted A Day On The Green tour a few years back.
While she is best known for the hit song 'Chuck E's In Love', she was not here to help her fans reminisce to the golden oldies. In fact, she didn't even perform her biggest hit.
Instead, Rickie Lee Jones gave a two-hour gut-wrenching performance directly from the heart. This was a show about her music, her joys and her pain. This is a lady who had been through a lot and had no trouble sharing it with the crowd.
When those early albums were touched on, Rickie Lee gave very different, sometimes almost unrecognisable versions of the songs. 'We Belong Together' and 'Living It Up' from 'Pirates' underwent a complete transformation for the live show.
Missing as well as 'Chuck E's In Love', were 'Danny's All Star Joint' and 'Horses'.
Instead, we were treated to tracks from the new album 'Balm In Gilead', stories of her family, some improv jazz and avant-garde rock.
The most refreshing thing about the Rickie Lee Jones show, once you accepted you weren't going to get a show of songs you knew, was the musicianship and uniqueness of the performance.
As she said early in the set, there was no setlist. She did whatever came to her. At one stage she picked up a guitar, started tuning it and then said she would rather play piano instead. It was that kind of show.
While Rickie Lee Jones once shared a chart with the likes of Linda Rondstadt, today she is somewhere between Lou Reed and Joni Mitchell.
Rickie Lee Jones has lived a hard life of drugs, broken relationships and dear departed. This performance was more of a biography than a show.
