THE AMNESTY CONCERT

    Rock in this Pocket              Bad Wisdom
    Marlene on the Wall              Neighborhood Girls
    Small Blue Thing                 Luka
    Tired of Sleeping                Tom's Diner
    When Heroes Go Down                encores:
    Gypsy                            The Queen and the Soldier
    Blood Sings                      Men in a War

The Royal Festival Hall, a venue for classical music, worked as a magnifying glass, almost a microscope, focusing on Suzanne, alone with her guitar. Even the finest nuances could be heard with superb clarity and the louder parts were free of all the distortion that usually mars non-classical performances. It is obvious that most artists would suffer under this merciless scrutiny. Not so Suzanne.

Starting with a blazing Rock in this Pocket, Suzanne immediately turned the attention her way. By When Heroes Go Down, she had us completely under her spell. There is a particular, determined energy that is only Suzanne's, an urgency in her voice and in the way she plays, which physically grips the heart. No big words, fancy sound effects or histrionic gestures are needed, because the truth is in the songs and in the woman who sings them.

To me, it became more obvious than ever before that Suzanne's art is far from pop or folk music -- it is poetry in its truest and most intense form. It is an enhanced language -- purified, yet augmented -- that expresses what the words fail to say. A language that ranges from the most subtle moods to the strongest passions, penetrated by a sharp intellect.

In between the songs, Suzanne talked more than she has done for years. As we all know, she is a marvellous storyteller with a dark, profoundly disquieting sense of humour; and far from disrupting the concert, as some band member seems to have told her, the stories and her characteristic chat complement the songs to form a consummate whole.

Bad Wisdom came across as one of the strongest songs. The speaker conveys something very painful and vital so credibly that you feel as if it were your own experience -- this is a truly therapeutic song. A pity it wasn't released as a single, so even more people could benefit from it.

Luka -- a famous song about child abuse to promote Amnesty's working group for children -- what a nice but embarrassingly trite idea it seems! But it worked, as always. The reason, of course, is that Luka is not a song about child abuse. It is a song from the point of view of an abused child. Anyone who has been hurt by someone they love and depend on can identify with Luka and his existential predicament. There is no patronising 'understanding', no feigned indignation, just the plain, paradoxically expressive language of the victim.

Tom's Diner brought a hint of hesitation, as some people tried to get the DNA beat going, but the first note of The Queen and the Soldier put Suzanne firmly back in command. The audience responded passionately, and Suzanne finally gave us Men in a War as an appropriate conclusion of this eloquent appeal for human rights.

Afterwards, Suzanne came down to the fans who had gathered backstage, signed our various items and, although still quite reserved, talked more freely to us than usual. At close quarters, she looked slight and delicate, yet strong, dignified and intensely beautiful -- just like her songs. She is a marvellous woman.