Live At Town Hall New York City September 19-20, 2001

"We want to dedicate our music tonight
To the great opportunity that we all have
To begin to truly understand
The events of the past few days
And to act upon them
With courage and with compassion
As we make our plans
To live in a completely new world."
(Laurie Anderson, track 1-1, 0:26 to 0:54)
"Playing my music on September 19th at Town Hall was one of the most intense evenings I've ever had as a performer. Live music is about being in the present and many people had been living almost exclusively in the present since the 11th of September. The atmosphere in the city was eerie, like during a strange holiday. The driven people in New York had all suddenly experienced enormous fear and uncertainty. Unable to predict, we were simply looking and listening.
I was in Chicago on September 11th and even though there was a lot of chaos we did the show anyway and then continued our tour - Toronto, Boston, Washington, Philadelphia and then finally New York. (...) Our tour continued through September and then we played in Europe in Ocober. (...)
The show was meant to be a live version of Life On A String. (...) I chose several songs that I hadn't played in a long time - ten, fifteen, twenty years. (...)
I know many artists had the feeling last fall that their work took on new meaning. For me, singing lines from O Superman like "Here come the planes. They're American planes. Made in America." felt like I had written it yesterday. In fact, I wrote that song in 1980 during the Iran-Contra affair, which now seemed like part of a longer conflict that continues to rage (...) It wasn't that the songs were "prophetic" as several reviewers pointed out. It was simpy that this war was still going on. Loss, betrayal, death, technology, anger and angels, these have often been the things I have written about. At Town Hall in New York I was singing for once about the absolute present."
Source: "Some Thoughts on the Live In New York Recording By Laurie Anderson" (insert with the 2CD).