Veteran country singer Kris Kristofferson played an out-of-tune guitar and deemed his own performance `terrible' during a gig at Chicago's City Winery.
"Few concert experiences are more dispiriting than watching a proven artist flounder onstage," wrote Bob Gendron, the critic from the Chicago Tribune, reviewing the 95-minute show last Wednesday at a sold-out City Winery.
The 80-year-old singer-songwriter/actor fought in vain to get through each song without mistakes and many fans reportedly left the auditorium during the two sets and intermission, although many warmly applauded too.
"Yet Kristofferson sounded ravaged, his once-flinty tone decimated and his deliveries reduced to croaks and wheezes, " lamented the Chicago Tribune.
"Frail and off-key, he often barely managed to get words out of his mouth. Relying on scrolled lyrics, he recited more than he sang, the approach worsened by abrupt halts and throat-clearing breaks. The rough, weather-beaten results - full of creaks, crevasses and crags - made for an extremely difficult listen."
Meanwhile, his guitar remained stubbornly out of tune as he struggled find the right chords and keep the melody line. The singer who has had to deal with memory loss of late also forgot that he was wearing a harmonica around his neck.
"That was horrible"; the country icon declared after one song, according to the Chicago newspaper. "There's no point in playing when you can't play, it's over," he said at another point.
"The only thing that matches my singing is my guitar playing," he also quipped self-deprecatingly.
Yet some of the hits were delivered with brio, according to Bob Gendron who wrote that Kristofferson `personally connected' with Sunday Mornin' Comin' Down, Why Me and The Pilgrim: Chapter 33. and Please Don't Tell Me How the Story Ends.
"Too bad it arrived amid such lamentable circumstances, " concluded Gendron.
