Close to the Edge: Near Death on the Orange Line
Sports Redux: C's Shot Down
Max Goes to Longwood: Wild Things on the Subway
Saturday Happenings
Sunday Happenings
Yeah, it was inevitable. The backlash, that is. When the turbo-hype visited upon soul sensation Amy Winehouse in the UK started to pick-up steam stateside, it was only a matter of time before the chorus of praise would be matched by a groundswell of derision -- or what's the BFD questioning (at least one gawker simply can't understand what all the fuss is about).
But when you set aside the tabloid tales of excess drinking and feuds with Lilly Allen, there's the music. And here at Bostonist Headquarters, many of us are quite enamored of Amy's hip hop influenced update on the sound of Motown, Philly Soul, and early '60s girl group R&B. Amy's smoky soul vocals have been described as Billie Holiday crossed with Lauryn Hill. But as the mighty ?uestlove noted (">on his myspace blog), Amy's Back to Black is the album Lauryn would've killed to make. Mark Ronson and Salaam Remi's production work is a big part of what makes Back to Black so phenomenal and infectious -- whether they're worshiping in the church of Phil Spector for the album's stunning title track, or channeling Berry Gordy and Gamble-Huff while experimenting with new hip hop beats.
The show's been sold out for some time and tickets have reportedly been going for up to $75 on ebay. So consider yourself lucky if you secured yours early on. Fellow Brit and indie violinist/singer Patrick Wolf opens. He's touring in support of his just released third album The Magic Position, which has been described as a "collection of Victorian-peaked electro/folk-pop" with a bit of soul sheen.
Avalon, Monday 5/7, all ages, 8pm (7pm doors), $15 SOLD OUT
Amy Winehouse: website | myspace (be one of Amy's 165K friends)| purchase
Patrick Wolf: website | myspace
Matt Durutti contributed this post
add to stumble upon
add to reddit
tweet this
post to facebook
just got back from avalon
gotta say, the soundboard people could try a little harder--sometimes the brass drowned the vocals & guitars--aside of that, Amy was way better than expected after reading a bad review of her Chicago show this past friday--she's just a strong talented girl, period.
Agreed, the sound guys screwed up an otherwise impressive performance. You can tell she's either new to the bigger venue scene though, or to American crowds vs. British. She didn't hold the audience like she could have. Her between song banter was pretty useless.