suddenly I'm unsure where do I call home

A rare night out without the girls for Lorna and myself as we went to see Jane Birkin at the Roundhouse - a suitably iconic venue for a 60's icon - a national treasure indeed, as someone shouted from the crowd. Although which nation was far from clear. She spoke in French at least as much as English; I did reflect at one point whether this was quite possibly the most ridiculously pretentious gig I could ever go to. But then, she is far more French than English these days, and whilst most of the set was drawn from her two most recent albums of collaborations and songs written for her by other writers, she will be forever associated with Gainsbourg and the songs that he wrote for her. She acknowledged the presence of his ghost at one point, and whilst Lorna and I were both sorry she didn't include our favourite Gainsbourg songs - Couleur Café and Comment te dire Adieu - many of the highlights were Gainsbourg compositions - Le moi et le je, Je m'appelle Jane (sung in duet with the soundman from the circle and ending with a kazoo solo by Birkin) and Ballade de Johnny Jane.
Her voice has never been strong - the breathlessness of Je T'aime (Moi Non Plus) is present in many of her songs - and there were times when the band seemed to overwhelm her. But her presence - her use of space, particularly when she left the stage, moved through the main space and ended up almost within touching distance of our seats in the circle - was captivating. A 61 year old grandmother, but there were plenty of flashes of the sex kitten first seen in Blow Up.
Some of the new material worked better than others - Neil Hannon's Home and Beth Gibbons' Strange Melody came to life, and Tom Waits' Alice could have been written for her. She played one new song - a sung/spoken tribute to Aung San Su Kyi, which could have been excruciatingly worthy, but was an unexpected highlight.
Performing for almost two hours, with no support, two standing ovations and encores of Ex-Fan des Sixties and L'Aquoiboniste, the evening never flagged, and we walked back to the car through the ashes of Camden Town with a smile on our faces.
The temptation to illustrate this post with one of the famous old photos we could not help but recall is strong, but instead, a lovely clip of her singing Di Doo Dah on the Russell Harty Show in 1973: