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DOUBLE CD/Extra Long - Order Now for the Holidays
See "Kiki & Herb: Alive on Broadway" in NYC until September 10th, 2006!
Entertainment Weekly's Best CD Review of 2/18/05
"Come back soon, Kiki & Herb, we need you!"
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FlakMagazine Review 2/17/05
"The operative phrase on this two-disc, two-hour-plus recording of Kiki & Herb's Carnegie Hall engagement of last September issues like an assault during a roiling interpretation of Annie Lennox's "Why." Kiki DuRane, about to let fly a larynx-lacerating scat-shout of the song's chorus, warns the audience, "Don't get too comfortable!"
The audience applauds with vigor. They don't want to get comfortable. Many of them have come to share in the triumphant ascendance of Kiki & Herb, from engagements in San Francisco (when the show was in its nascent stages), to their id-driven evenings at the Flamingo East, P.S. 122 and Fez in downtown New York, to an off-Broadway engagement at the Cherry Lane Theater in 2003, and now, improbably, to their sold-out show at Carnegie Hall. And most of the audience knows that Kiki & Herb didn't score this gig because they make people feel comfortable.
... Kiki & Herb's Will Die for You features segments and full performances of at least 27 songs, all recast and deconstructed to fit the show's conceit. Kiki's singing voice, caramel with schmaltz in the low register and sandpapery and threatening when she lets loose a scream, will be a tough sell to some listeners, but it is immediate and vital. And Herb's piano work is phenomenal; he never ceases playing from the moment he hits the stage, and he manages to glide through the wildly various set list, from the grandiloquent "The Windmills of My Mind" to the plaintive "I Was Meant for the Stage" to the dance-hall rollicking "No Children" with admirable dexterity. Further, it is the bitter cocktail of anger, pain and the longing for grace, that allows Kiki & Herb to claim some songs as their own. Steve Nicks' "Has Anyone Ever Written Anything for You" and Bonnie Tyler's "Total Eclipse of the Heart" exist on these two discs in their definitive versions, and - shockingly - the duo's sensual, aching version of Kate Bush's "Running Up That Hill" becomes a meditation on loneliness, the need for comfort and a plea for understanding and communion with intimates, textures that were only hinted at in Bush's new-wave version."
GayWired Review 2/17/05
"Anyone who can't get enough of Kiki and Herb onstage should buy this CD, a pink boa, an endless supply of pina coladas, a microphone, stage lighting... well, at least buy the CD. The rest can come later. And until then, you'll feel like Kiki and Herb themselves are both right there in front of you reeking of alcohol and desperation. Following their 2000 Christmas creation, Do You Hear What We Hear, this double-CD Carnegie Hall recording double-psychotic and double the fun."
Daily Variety Review of Concert 9/04
"One look at the crowd filing into "Kiki & Herb Will Die for You" made it clear this was not the usual Carnegie Hall set. In place of tuxes, pearls and shellacked hair were gleaming shaved heads and fauxhawks, tattoos and screaming fashion statements, drag queens and muscle boys. But the heavily partisan public should in no way detract from the accomplishment of downtown denizens Justin Bond and Kenny Mellman, who took possession of the hallowed uptown hall in an emotionally exhausting, career-capping show that will be talked about for months to come.
... As the evening wears on and Kiki's composure erodes, the decrepit diva's braying interpretations inch under the skin with their unsettling mix of self-reproach and fierce accusation. Especially memorable were Marc Almond's bitter "A Lover Spurned," a torn-up version of Joy Division's "Love Will Tear Us Apart," a taxingly calisthenic take on Tom Jones' "Sex Bomb," Style Council's rueful "Paris Match" and the cheesy Bonnie Tyler hit "Total Eclipse of the Heart," performed as one of several encores, with brief detours into Pat Benatar, Yeats and Joni Mitchell. "
Kiki is Justin Bond, Herb is Kenny Mellman
CD Produced by Julian Fleisher
Executive Producers, Victoria Leacock and Stephen Hendel
PLEASE NOTE: On older equipment/car stereos Disc 2 may seem to 'skip' on the last two tracks, it is NOT the CD. 90 percent of equipment has no problem.
Opened and reviewed Sept. 19, 2004.
Running time: 2 HOURS, 57 MIN.
With: Sandra Bernhard, Michael Cavadias, Isaac Mizrahi, Jason Sellards, and Rufus Wainwright.
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