This story is featured in CityBeat's April 3 print edition.
Suzanne Vega is a musical survivor. The New York City native has been in the spotlight for nearly four decades, a winding career that crested commercially with 1987’s Solitude Standing (which included radio staples “Luka” and “Tom’s Diner) and is capped by the 2020 release of An Evening of New York Songs and Stories, a live album featuring tunes from across her lengthy catalog.
Vega studied modern dance in high school and English literature in college, artistic branches that couldn’t help but inform her musical approach — penetrating, folk-fortified songs that eventually employed elements of electronic music and a dollop of pop lushness. And while her studio output has slowed in recent years (the most recent effort being 2016’s Lover, Beloved: Songs from an Evening with Carson McCullers), Vega tours on a regular basis, delivering her literate material with passion and dexterity. Recent set lists include songs from across her various artistic eras, from “Queen and the Soldier,” which appeared on her 1985 self-titled debut, to “99.9 F,” the sleek electro effort that remains a fascinating U-turn in a discography that continues to resonate.
“I like doing ‘Queen and the Soldier,’” Vega said in a 2023 interview with the QR when asked about performing live these days. “It’s remained a fan favorite. It doesn’t matter how long a gig is, how long we’ve been on, it’s always fun to do.”
But there’s inevitably one moment that stands out each night — a song with an interesting creative trajectory given its move from a 1981 piano-based demo to a 1990 beat-driven remix version known for employing various groundbreaking digital compression schemes.
“Of course, we always come to ‘Tom’s Diner’ at the end, and it’s a really joyful moment,” she said in the same QR interview. “It’s only become more and more glorious over the years. Now we have overlays of the audience’s memories. All these years since the record launched, they get up because they have their own memories, whilst younger folks have heard it sampled through remixes. It’s just such a beautiful overlay of memory and feeling through time.”
Suzanne Vega plays Memorial Hall on April 15 at 8 p.m. Info: memorialhallotr.com.
