Alison Moyet is one of the few pop/synth artists from the 80’s that I truly liked. Her voice was unique and made her stand out from all the other of her contemporaries. Besides having a big and beautiful voice she was also an accomplished songwriter and All Cried Out was a long time favorite of mine. Nowadays she is on tour with her newest album The Other, and yesterday night she played at Rockefeller in Oslo.

I still remember the first time I heard Alison Moyet, and that I bought her debut solo album, Alf, immediately after – and I still have it, I am actually playing it while I write this post. I noticed her excellent voice plus her catchy songs. I wasn’t too fond of the synth sounds and the lack of guitars (except on Invisible), but I accepted that as part of her package.

A couple of years after Alf came That Old Devil Called Love, and in 2004 the beautiful album, Voice, with standards and also two older songs, Dido’s Lament by Henry Purcell and Je Crois Entendre Encore by Hercule Bizet. Those songs really show how good her voice is. Between Alf and Voice she released four other albums plus compilations, and she has also released three original albums after Voice, the last one being The Other from 2017.

Alison Moyet’s tour these days is to promote The Other, and her concerts are a mix of songs from the album plus her older hits and the best of her songs from Yazoo, which was where she started out before going solo. Both works well, even if I am not too happy with her new version of All Cried Out (you can compare the album version and the live version yourself to see what you like the best). Except for Invisible, which isn’t on her present live set, the rest of the set is definitely representative of her career.

The crowd at the sold out Rockefeller in Oslo was an interesting mix of old fans of Alison Moyet, all in the late 40’s to mid 50’s, plus more seasoned concert goers. Many of her old fans had obviously chosen this concert as their one concert for 2017. It also seemed like they got full value for their money, and she got full applause from the first song. She doesn’t do much on stage except sing, but that is ok with me. Sometimes the stage show distracts from the actual performance of the songs, but not so with Alison Moyet.

Here are the songs Alison Moyet performed at Rockefeller.

All photos are © Per Ole Hagen and must not be used without written permission.