If you can’t use close circuit TV and you have no band, no nothing, with you, you better find some way to pull the audience forward and teaching us how to clap isn’t it, it is too amateur, it is too dowdy for what should be a sparkling rave up. A good light show can’t begin to substitute for a great presence.
Six of these artists are rockers. The Front Bottoms, Cerebral Ballzy and White Lung are relatively (WL dates from 2006) young bands, Wussy has been around since 2001, when Ian was, ahem, a spritely 56 year old. David Gray is a singer songwriter (I mean essentially, right?). So, yeah, for one week only rock makes a comeback.
Don’t – Ed Sheeran – I’ll believe most things given the opportunity, but Ed as a tousle headed ladies man, sleeping with a popular pop singer and writing songs about it? That’s pushing me to the outer limits of credibility. Maybe if he had sex appeal? – B-
Keep It Gay – Nathan Lane, Matthew Broderick – Uproariously funny celebration of all things camp and magical and, well, gray about the musical theater… stopped the show when I saw it on Broadway. Of course, so did everything else – B+
A huge week, the debut album by Big Freedia, a really great disco guy whose 2012 “Booty-Whop” and current “Explode” are just so much fun, Cerebral Balzy are a blast live, everything I’ve heard off Lana’s Ultra Violence has been first rate, and J Lo better come up with the goods, but the week belongs to soul brother # 1 Sam Smith’s eagerly anticipated debut album.
