Customer Reviews

Will Die for You

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(0)
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This CD is a great recording of Kiki & Herb's "farewell" performance in New York. They have achieved iconic stature in New York City, and their shows always played well here. This is them at their best, no-nonsense. No emotion too sacred. No joke too tasteless. You'll be laughing and crying and loving it all as you listen. Kiki just might even inspire you to become a drunk! What's also amazing is the music that Herb is able to evoke from just a piano. Highly recommended - check it out; especially if you prefer your listenings slightly more on the demented side.

Kiki & Herb have a following in London (UK), where I'm based -- and I was delighted to find on this CD some of the songs and routines that they performed on board the PRESIDENT there a year or so back. The CD experience matches the sensory battering K&H give and, by golly, it's intense (just like Kiki!). So take it all at once (again, just like Kiki!) -- don't walk away from the CD player; don't dip in and sample; drink this cup to the bitter dregs (they're just like Kiki, too!). I was lucky enough to listen to K&HWDFY during a four-hour backroads drive across Ohio and Indiana, locked in my sensory-deprivation box, i.e., air-conditioned rental Ford F150 cab, and believe me, that CD did a lot to counter ambient wholesomeness. Very enthusiastically recommended!

I want to understand why I like this album so much... then I listen to it again and remember why and understand Justin Bond and pianist Kenny Mellman's vision when they created Kiki DuRane and long suffering friend and pianist Herb.

This is just my opinion, of course...

By the time Justin came along, drag had gotten kind of 'mainstream' and dull. There was nothing left, nothing further to explore. You can go to any drag review in almost any city and watch the drag queens lip-sync to the same tired songs over and over. It was like the McDonald's of drag shows - the same kind of entertainment everywhere.

Then, in the early in the 90's, Kiki and Herb was born, and all drag queens bowed before her.

A revival of the old-fashioned LIVE singer? A cabaret act? Unheard of...!

I am a huge fan, and this album represents their zenith. It is a living breathing example of that final show that they like to say been on the road "since 1934." Kiki talks and talks between the pauses, Herb waits for the pauses to start playing music, and Kiki is drunk, and schmaltzy, and sings music you would NEVER expect anyone EVER to put together in a song list, but it WORKS.

I mean, how do you go from Bonnie Tyler and Eminem to the Talking Heads and Joy Division?

Here is a bit of trivia, quoted from a reliable source: "In 2004, Kiki and Herb gave a "farewell" performance at New York City's Carnegie Hall. The one-night-only show was titled "Kiki and Herb Will Die for You" and featured a number of celebrities, including Sandra Bernhard, Isaac Mizrahi, Jake Shears, Michal Cavadias, and Rufus Wainwright."

This is that show, all 2 hours and 57 minutes of it, just Kiki, Herb, and a piano, and over 200 screaming adoring fans.

A bit of techie stuff for the audiophiles: The 2CDs play well, and the sound is crisp. It is mastered from the original elements, and is Dolby playable. There have been complaints online of skipping on the last two tracks, but not my copy. The CD inserts provide wonderful information about the show and gives a brief history.

Actually, there are about 5 encores (Total Eclipse of the Heart, Those Were the Days, Tonight's the Kind of Night, Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space, Running Up That Hill), which only goes to show you the crowd did not want the night to end.

About the music: From the opening note, which has Herb right off the bat singing by himself (!) "Close To It All," to the last very notes of Kiki as she sings THE MOST MOVING EVER VERSION of Kate Bush's "Running Up that Hill," you will laugh at the cheesy humor, you might cry, and if your heart is big enough, you will enjoy every moment it's on... period.

Now, as a final thought, I'm going to make a comparison here that might get me in trouble with a LOT of certain folks about certain icons, but here goes:

Judy Garland sang at Carnegie Hall back in 1961. It has been widely hailed and quoted as one of the greatest live musical recordings ever made. She had a full orchestra, she was at her peak (no matter what anyone says), and when she sang that night she poured her entire tired soul into that performance.

43 years later, a skinny boy named Justin Bond sang in drag and in pearls and almost took her crown away - or at least held it, admired it, wished he could have it, and if only for almost 3 wonderful live hours, he worked it.

Do yourself a MASSIVE favor - pick up this album.

I listen to it at least once a week when I'm home and the day flies by.

Thanks!

(p.s. - as of 9/2008, there are TWO different versions of this disc floating around - this review was for the original 2004 release, not the 2005 "fixed" release, which is essentially the same CD, just without the skipping glitches found on CD 2 - people have been e-mailing me asking about the "differences", so I'd figured I'd throw it in my review here)

This one is realy too good for any words. At the end of a recent trip we did not want to get out of the car until we finished hearing the last cut. To say it is funny and irreverent is an understatement if anything
This would be great holiday or anytime CD. Herb's piano work is out of this world. Kiki may be my step-mom, but I haven't figured it out yet.
The messages of peace, freedom and love don't get lost.

Kiki and Herb died for our sins--of course hoping we'd commit as many of them as possible in this lifetime. Stay alive Kiki. We love you.

What can be said . . . .If your a fan of Kiki & Herb you know what to expect. ALthough most live shows I remember wer much filthier, . . or drunker . !
Sound quality is excellent and I am sad that they perform no more, but Justin and Kenny still are doing much other work, . . so maybe we can be surprised in the future.
I still don't know why SNL never had them on, . . maybe cuz live they could be dangerously unpredictable or were "too theatre" for their taste. I think miss Sinead and Charles Rocket made them nervous about what they air. Although Many of their musical guests have let the F.bomb drop but not like Kiki might do. . lol.
Find the "Wigstock Kiki and Herb" clip on youtube for a fine example of them doing an Elton John/Shakespeare number.

kinda strange but if you listen to the songs, you'll see that they're are very good singers