The Guardian

Copyright 1995

Monday, August 28, 1995

The Guardian Home Page

First night: Oh sister, this can turn you right off What Women Want: Royal Festival Hall

WHAT women want, according to female­led Viva radio, who organised it, is a concert starring The Pretenders, Sinead O'Connor and others with nothing in common but gender.

The centrepiece of a two­day "celebration of women" on the South Bank, its sole criterion seemed to be that the artists had to be from an impoverished area. Failing that, simply being girls would do. How else would an Anglo­American pop group, a tormented Irish diva, and a Belgian­Zairean a cappella combo end up on the same bill?

Fortunately for the artists, the mostly female audience was in uninhibited singalong mood. Dignity was no obstacle as they merrily clapped, and on orders from Belgium's Zap Mama troupe, pretended to be birds in a forest.

It was enough to make you hand in your female membership card. Men may be the oppressor, but at least they don't caw like cockatoos.

It is hard to contain the superlatives where the Zap Mama fivesome are concerned. They turned their hands to R & B, rap and jazz with equal agility, but their forte, scat singing in French and African language, was shiver­making. It was only marred by the crowd's unfettered dancing and tweeting. Brits going native are never a pretty sight.

Afterwards, a confusing flurry. A prayer was offered to Eire's St Brigid, and Germaine Greer appeared out of nowhere to read one of her tracts. It was all getting a bit clitoral ­ what next, a fertility dance? At least their appearances were brief, probably to permit Sinead O'Connor to play a longer set.

Maybe the ratio should have been reversed. It was not that O'Connor was in any way lacking. If anything, she wasn't lacking enough. After a while, one craved respite from her relentless intensity. The fact that she looked conventionally feminine for the first time ­ pregnant, clad in flowery blue skirt and hand­finished with a full head of hair ­ only inspired her to greater heights of truculence.

Accompanied by a thundering backing band, she yet again lambasted her mother, in the sung/shrieked Fire on Babylon, and the British government on the absurd rap Famine (which alleges the potato famine was a conspiracy to starve the Irish). The most honest and/or paranoid singer this side of Courtney Love, she uses music as therapy. It was enervating but compelling, like watching an accident. Long after she finished, a burly Australian in the balcony was still crying for an encore.

Chrissie Hynde, vegetarian and Pretender, was some contrast. Slouched on a stool ­ this was an acoustic set with string quartet, which apparently called for everyone to sit down ­ she alternated warm versions of early hits like Kid and Private Life with drolleries delivered in an unvanquished Mid­Western accent.

She also grappled with the question that was on everyone's mind.

Rising and stretching, she asked, "What do women want? A body like this?" Oh, the cruelty. Who wouldn't want 30­inch hips?

To judge by the ardent audience, women also want a mish­mash of pop, world music and hymns, served up as though it's meant to be good for us. Liked the music; hated the motive.

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