Julie Felix
The Sage Gateshead Sat 14 June 2008
Julie’s 70th birthday concert
This special event was Julie Felix’s 70th Birthday concert. Will and I had seen Julie once before at a free concert in Hyde Park in the 70s, but I’d never been to see her since then. I have a few of her albums and thought it was time to see her again, and was intrigued at the thought of going to her birthday concert. So Will and I went along to the Sage to see Julie, along with fans from across the country who had come to celebrate her birthday with her.
It was obvious that many of the people in the audience knew each other and knew Julie; and that they had travelled from all over the UK to come to this concert. The stage was decked with balloons to celebrate the occasion; Julie came on stage dressed in a white trouser suit; she looked great! For her first set Julie focused on songs by her 60s contemporaries, some of which appear on her latest CD Highway of Diamonds. These included Bob Dylan’s A Hard Rain’s Gonna Fall, Buffy Sainte-Marie’s Universal Soldier; and Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah. Each of these songs was accompanied by a story of her memories of her meetings with the writer in the 60s.
She read out a message from Tom Paxton: “At 70, still the possessor of the most radiant smile in Britain. Old friends are the best friends, especially when they get old. But that’s not for awhile yet for you. They tell me that 70 is the new 40, but you’re not a day over 35. All the best. From Tom.”
In the second set Julie sang a selection of her own songs, a couple of which were in Spanish. I didn’t know these songs, but they all sounded pretty good. The crowd gave her a standing ovation at the end, and everyone seemed to agree that it had been a pretty special event. Will and I certainly enjoyed it.
ticket
programme
website : http://www.knibbworld.com/juliefelix
Review of concert at website : http://www.knibbworld.com/juliefelix/reviews.htm
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