Lisa Fischer & The Grand Baton @ Concourse Concert Hall Chatswood 

Reviewed by Chris Zinn

Such is the fate of a backing singer that in 1991 Lisa Fischer brought out her so far sole CD in the magnificent shape of So Intense.

The title held firm almost 30 years later in her exquisite renderings in Sydney even if the repertoire was not always so easy to recognise.

Her Grammy award-winning single How Can I stand the Pain was as radically re-visioned as were her better known Rolling Stone’s collaborations  Miss You and Jumpin’ Jack Flash.

Most of the audience probably knew her more from her role in the doco Twenty Feet From Stardom than that album so were aware of her work with  Sting, Luther Vandross and Stones for some 25 years.

She has swapped being back up vocals for a solo career singing over the past five years with a distinctive trio called Grand Baton.

The result was a quite unpredictable treat and melange of styles and genres glued together with the band’s terrific musicianship.

Above all was the voice we’d all come to hear and the thought that with  perhaps the right songs and management she might have been a much better known star.

In the end it was  the lucky audience at the regal Chatswood venue who were rather like those talented singers just twenty of so feet from a real star performance.