Information reaching Kossyderrickent has it that Pink and Brandi Carlile paid beautiful tribute to Sinéad O’Connor in Cincinnati last night.
The last-minute addition to the tightly scripted and choreographed show featuring the headliner and her opening act was a tall hill to climb at best. O’Connor’s famous rendition of the Prince-penned ballad is one of modern music’s most moving, gut-wrenching love laments. More subdued than the equally untouchable Houston song, “Nothing Compares” is perhaps even more of a vocal challenge because of an implicit, rending emotion that’s impossible to fake.
As for Carlile, she also tackled Radiohead’s “Creep” and Joni Mitchell’s “A Case of You” during her nine-song opening set. Earlier in the day, she wrote of O’Connor on Twitter, “She was right the whole time. I hope she found some peace.” Responding to another user who wished O’Connor could have experienced such an outpouring of support during her lifetime, she said, “this is painfully true. We can make it up to her by doing it for people she fought for.”
Just hours after the news broke that Sinead O’Connor had passed at age 56, P!nk found the most fitting way to pay tribute to the powerful, pioneering vocalist whose calling card was emotional poignancy and fierce independence.
On the first U.S. date of her neon-lit, fittingly titled Summer Carnival tour, the acrobatic singer stopped spinning for a few minutes, turned down the bright lights and acknowledged that the world had lost one of its most cherished voices, one that had meant everything to teenage Alicia Moore back before the world knew her power.
Prior to the duet performance, P!nk reminisced about recording amateur demo tapes of “Nothing Compares 2 U” and Whitney Houston’s “Greatest Love of All” on the boardwalk in Ocean City, Md., as a child. “So in honor of Sinead, and in honor of my very, very talented friend Brandi Carlile, I asked her if she would come out here and sing this song with me,” she told the crowd.
P!nk previously performed O’Connor’s Prince-penned, worldwide 1990 smash hit on Feb. 15 for a BBC Radio 2 session in London, backed by the BBC Orchestra. “Nothing Compares 2 U” was one of three covers during last night’s set, joining Bob Dylan’s “Make You Feel My Love” and Sade’s “No Ordinary Love.”
