With July coming to an end, we near the
midpoint of our Sporting Club adventure. Typically, the Sporting
Club
features its hottest acts in July, with August as more of a party
month, presenting somewhat lesser known celebrities.
So, with August on the horizon, we get a chance to heat up our own
act.
Meanwhile, get a load of what we had this week!
ZZ Top-
These hilltop, hard rockers go back to 1969 and the three
original members still are together, performing and touring.
Playing Texas style hard blues, they probably are the raunchiest
playing blues threesome in the industry. Their stage set
is a composite of guitars, drums, microphone stands and
speakers, retrofitted... no, mechanically merged with gleaming
car and truck mufflers and motorcycle parts. You'd think that we'd
want to keep our distance from these old, Southern
hillbillies but, of every group we've performed with thus far (and
there have been eight) ZZ Top has been the most
engaging, slap happy and affable bunch, actually approaching US for
pictures! Hey, ya never know!
Jill Scott-
OK, game over! Jill Scott burned the Sporting Club down. Though her
first appearance in Monte Carlo was disappointingly attended,
(barely half the house was seated - likely due to
Jill's practically being unknown in uppity Europe) still, the
Sporting Club took
a chance on Jill Scott's talent and she made Monaco hang its snooty,
royal head because she schooled 'em all. The first third of her
set was spent on loosening the sophisticates with her singular brand
of Hip-Hop Philly Fhunk and social/relationship spoken word.
No male point-of-view here you impudent patriarchs! Persecution got
punk'd, oppression got outed and injustice got incarcerated!
An artist's kind of performer, she can grab any audience she wishes.
Can you say, SUBSTANCE?
Alicia Keys-
If you said substance with Jill Scott, with Alicia Keys you said SEX.
Then you said it again. No question a stunning beauty,
thick in all the right places, captivating everywhere else, her
physical attributes provide a gossamer but galvanized guard
against
those who might consider her musicianship struggling to match up
(yeah, I'm talkin' about myself). Still, a wonderful performer,
who
has learned how to balance her front and center stand-up, solo
vocalizing with both strong and tender moments of
self-accompaniment
at the grand piano, Alicia Keys played to rousing, standing room
crowds two nights in a row. Too bad I never got to take that picture
of
her at the piano with me in my black, silk underwear. (Hey, I've lost
some weight; I'm lookin' good) Oh well, there's always
NEVER!
Christophe Mae-
Another youngster, barely 30, who has taken Europe by storm, this
Briton has decided to go the path of hybrid, Afro-Euro dance
music.
Backed by a troupe of African-European and African-American
musicians, Chris Mae reminds me of Johnny Clegg, of South Africa,
who eschewed his English, Jewish upbringing to hone his musical
skills with the Zulu musicians of the southern Motherland. In so
doing,
Clegg helped to knock down the social barriers which poisoned so much
of South Africa's cultural evolution. In a way, Chris Mae
is walking that same road. That night, the Sporting Club was packed
with a multi-hued sea of screaming teenyboppers and the occasional
adult.
Hey, don't hate; sooner or later we're all gonna be
brown!
Juanes-
Not only is Music the universal language but it also is the universal
crucible. Juanes is a South American, heavy metal rock group.
Its front man, Juan Esteban, was born in Medellin, Columbia, the
home of some of the deadliest druglords on earth. Juan's family was
victimized
on multiple occasions by the marauding murderers; his pain and
anger are the catalysts which bring his writing and playing to a
roiling cataclysm.
All of his music is socially relevant and he is unique in that he
gives his voice of heavy metal to causes like disarmament,
anti-military land-mining,
and the dissolution of his government's involvement in illicit drug
trading. No wonder he is practically unknown in the United
States!
Hucknall-|
Well, it took a month but finally, something of a disappointment.
Mick Hucknall is most recently remembered as the lead singer of the
British
pop-rock group, Simply Red, who made a killing in the "blue-eyed
soul" genre. In truth, Hucknall is a genuine aficionado of the Blues
giant,
Bobby "Blue" Bland, and this concert was a tribute to the rock-n-roll
hall of famer. Unfortunately, the band was absolutely listless and
plodding,
the repertoire was one dimensional and I (as well as a few paying
patrons) couldn't even muster up the courtesy to suffer the entire
performance.
I pitied the fool. I guess that happens to you when you pal around
with the lame likes of Tony Blair.
Jusqu'a la prochaine fois!
Fino alla prossima volta!