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Kylie shines in two-hour extravaganza

Saturday concert was rare chance to see Aussie legend in D.C. area

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Kylie Minogue (photo courtesy of EMI)

Just like the Greek goddess she embodies in her show, Kylie Minogue served love, beauty and sexuality to her fans at the Patriot Center Saturday in her “Aphrodite Live Tour.”

Even though she has been a successful international superstar since the late ’80s, this is only the second time the 42-year-old Aussie native has ever toured the U.S. — the first time being only a handful of dates in cities like New York and Los Angeles in 2009.  So, this was a rare opportunity for Kylie lovers here in the States to catch a glimpse of her live. Only achieving success here in 2001 with her dance album “Fever,”  she has always hovered on the outskirts of the American mainstream and her fans have predominately been gay men. And she certainly knows what her fans would want from her in a live show. In this case: ancient Greece meets discotheque.

Starting things off with the title track of her current album “Aphrodite,” she rose from below the stage on a gold shell and dressed in full-on Greek garb looking youthful and gorgeous. Fog machines set the scene while the stage was adorned with elaborate columns and staircases. A gaggle of attractive, well-built male dancers decorated the stage for virtually the entire show. Female dancers, two backup singers, acrobats and a full band were also part of her on-stage posse.

It was quite a theatrical spectacle and on par with the grand-scale productions of Madonna, Cher and Bette Midler. It felt more suited for a stint in glitzy Las Vegas rather than a space limiting venue on a college campus. In fact, the U.S. leg of her tour had to be cut down from the extravagant European shows due to space and traveling concerns. In those shows she had much larger stages to fit props and house lavish running waterfalls. She even had a “splash zone” where a certain section of the venue’s crowd would get wet. Still, even a few elements missing did not detract from the final result.

Whether she was appearing on stage riding a carousel horse for “Illusion” or a chariot for “I Believe in You,” she seemed to be topping herself with each performance. A rock rendition of her biggest dancefloor  hit “Can’t Get You Out of My Head” was unexpected and may have been the highlight of the evening.

She channeled Breathless Mahoney for a vampy lounge version of her club hit “Slow” and when it came to performing material off of her new album, she made some welcomed alterations as well. One that stood out was a mash-up of 2002’s “Love at First Sight” mixed with the ‘Aphrodite’ track “Can’t Beat This Feeling.” After embracing suspended white winged dancers in “Looking for an Angel” she went right into an amazing cover of The Eurythmics’ ‘80s hit “There Must Be an Angel (Playing with my Heart).” Don’t be surprised if she releases that as a single in the future.

Minogue showed off her top-notch vocals and gave hardcore fans a treat with the stripped down ballad “If You Don’t Love Me” from her 1994 self-titled album. Fans hoping to hear her ’80s hits “I Should Be So Lucky” and “The Loco-Motion” were left disappointed. The oldest hits she performed were the mostly  unknown “Better the Devil You Know” and “What Do I have to Do” from her 1990 album “Rhythm of Love.” Switching out the two lesser known tracks for the more familiar favorites would have been a wiser choice. The show-stopping finale was her current hit “All the Lovers” — an appropriate way to end such a high energy and unified show.

Throughout the tight 24-track, two-hour extravaganza, she made several eye-popping costume changes. From Greek goddess to fashionista, she gave any drag queen in the audience inspiration for days. Not overly avant-garde like Lady Gaga and more feminine than Madonna, her outfits were sexy but never raunchy. The only outfit dud was when she came out wearing what looked like the skinned hide of Fozzie Bear from the Muppets.

On the dancing aspect of the show, she pretty much left that up to her dancers. She did less dancing and more parading while she sang. Think Cher. But, to be fair, Kylie never was an artist that incorporated much choreography into her productions.

Her ability to connect with her fans is one of her greatest attributes as an entertainer. At several points throughout the show she graciously acknowledged her love for her fans and on the receiving end it felt genuine. Never cold or unattainable like some of her diva contemporaries, she was playful at times, even accepting a rose from a fan in the front row and sharing the story of her White House visit earlier in the day. Like her music she is sugary sweet, joyfully infectious and never disappointing.

Set list:

1. Aphrodite
2. The One
3. Wow
4. Illusion
5. I Believe In You
6. Cupid Boy
7. Spinning Around
8. Get Outta My Way
9. What Do I Have to Do?
10. Everything is Beautiful
11. Slow
12. Confide in Me
13. Can’t Get You Out of My Head
14. In My Arms
15.  Looking For An Angel
16. There Must Be An Angel (Playing With My Heart)
17. Love at First Sight/Can’t Beat This Feeling (mash up)
18. If You Don’t Love Me
19. Better The Devil You Know
20. Come Into My World (piano accompanied)
21.  Better Than Today (aucostic, bluesy into that goes full force into a dance beat)
22. Put Your Hands Up (If You Feel Love)
23. On A Night Like This
24. All The Lovers

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Music & Concerts

Underdog glorious: a personal remembrance of Jill Sobule

Talented singer, songwriter died in house fire on May 1

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Writer Gregg Shapiro with Jill Sobule in 2000. (Photo courtesy Shapiro)

I’ve always prided myself on being the kind of music consumer who purchased music on impulse. When I stumbled across “Things Here Are Different,” Jill Sobule’s 1990 MCA Records debut album on vinyl in a favorite Chicago record store, I bought it without knowing anything about her. This was at a time when we didn’t have our phones in our pockets to search for information about the artist on the internet. The LP stayed in my collection until, as vinyl was falling out of fashion, I replaced it with a CD a few years later.

Early in my career as an entertainment journalist, I received a promo copy of Jill’s eponymous 1995 Atlantic Records album. That year, Atlantic Records was one of the labels at the forefront of signing and heavily promoting queer artists, including Melissa Ferrick and Extra Fancy, and its roster included the self-titled album by Jill. It was a smart move, as the single “I Kissed A Girl” became a hit on radio and its accompanying video (featuring Fabio!) was in heavy rotation on MTV (when they still played videos).

Unfortunately for Jill, she was a victim of record label missteps. When 1997’s wonderful “Happy Town” failed to repeat the success, Atlantic dumped her. That was Atlantic’s loss, because her next album, the superb “Pink Pearl” contained “Heroes” and “Mexican Wrestler,” two of her most beloved songs. Sadly, Beyond Music, the label that released that album ceased to exist after just a few years. To her credit, the savvy Jill had also started independently releasing music (2004’s “The Folk Years”). That was a smart move because her next major-label release, the brilliant “Underdog Victorious” on Artemis Records, met a similar fate when that label folded.

With her 2009 album “California Years,” Jill launched her own indie label, Pinko Records, on which she would release two more outstanding full-length discs, 2014’s “Dottie’s Charms” (on which she collaborated with some of her favorite writers, including David Hadju, Rick Moody, Mary Jo Salter, and Jonathan Lethem), and 2018’s stunning “Nostalgia Kills.” Jill’s cover of the late Warren Zevon’s “Don’t Let Us Get Sick” on “Nostalgia Kills” was particularly poignant as she had toured with him as an opening act.

Jill was a road warrior, constantly on tour, and her live shows were something to behold. My first interview with Jill took place at the Double Door in Chicago in early August of 1995, when she was the opening act for legendary punk band X. She had thrown her back out the previous day and was diagnosed with a herniated disc. To be comfortable, she was lying down on a fabulous-‘50s sofa. “I feel like I’m at my shrink’s,” she said to me, “Do you want me to talk about my mother?”

That sense of humor, which permeated and enriched her music, was one of many reasons to love Jill. I was privileged to interview her for seven of her albums. Everything you would want to know about her was right there in her honest lyrics, in which she balanced her distinctive brand of humor with serious subject matter. Drawing on her life experiences in songs such as “Bitter,” “Underachiever,” “One of These Days,” “Freshman,” “Jetpack,” “Nothing To Prove,” “Forbidden Thoughts of Youth,” “Island of Lost Things,” “Where Do I Begin,” “Almost Great,” and “Big Shoes,” made her songs as personal as they were universal, elicited genuine affection and concern from her devoted fans.

While she was a consummate songwriter, Jill also felt equally comfortable covering songs made famous by others, including “Just A Little Lovin’” (on the 2000 Dusty Springfield tribute album “Forever Dusty”) and “Stoned Soul Picnic” (from the 1997 Laura Nyro tribute album “Time and Love”). Jill also didn’t shy away from political subject matter in her music with “Resistance Song,” “Soldiers of Christ,” “Attic,” “Heroes,” “Under the Disco Ball,” and the incredible “America Back” as prime examples.

Here’s something else worth mentioning about Jill. She was known for collaboration skills. As a songwriter, she maintained a multi-year creative partnership with Robin Eaton (“I Kissed A Girl” and many others), as well as Richard Barone, the gay frontman of the renowned band The Bongos. Jill’s history with Barone includes performing together at a queer Octoberfest event in Chicago in 1996. Writer and comedian Julie Sweeney, of “SNL” and “Work in Progress” fame was another Chicago collaborator with Sobule (Sweeney lives in a Chicago suburb), where they frequently performed their delightful “The Jill and Julia Show.” John Doe, of the aforementioned band X, also collaborated with Jill in the studio (“Tomorrow Is Breaking” from “Nostalgia Kills”), as well as in live performances.

On a very personal note, in 2019, when I was in the process of arranging a reading at the fabulous NYC gay bookstore Bureau of General Services – Queer Division, I reached out to Jill and asked her if she would like to be on the bill with me. We alternated performing; I would read a couple of poems, and Jill would sing a couple of songs. She even set one of my poems to music, on the spot.

Jill had an abundance of talent, and when she turned her attention to musical theater, it paid off in a big way. Her stage musical “F*ck 7th Grade,” a theatrical piece that seemed like the next logical step in her career, had its premiere at Pittsburgh’s City Theatre in the fall of 2020, during the height of the pandemic. The unique staging (an outdoor drive-in stage at which audience members watched from their cars) was truly inspired. “F*ck 7th Grade” went on to become a New York Times Critic’s pick, as well as earning a Drama Desk nomination.

In honor of the 30th anniversary of Jill’s eponymous 1995 album, reissue label Rhino Records is re-releasing it on red vinyl. Jill and I had been emailing each other to arrange a time for an interview. We even had a date on the books for the third week of May.

When she died in a house fire in Minnesota on May 1 at age 66, Jill received mentions on network and cable news shows. She was showered with attention from major news outlets, including obits in the New York Times and Rolling Stone (but not Pitchfork, who couldn’t be bothered to review her music when she was alive). Is it wrong to think that if she’d gotten this much attention when she was alive she could have been as big as Taylor Swift? I don’t think so.

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Music & Concerts

Tom Goss returns with ‘Bear Friends Furever Tour’

Out singer/songwriter to perform at Red Bear Brewing Co.

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Singer Tom Goss is back. (Photo by Dusti Cunningham)

Singer Tom Goss will bring his “Bear Friends Furever Tour” to D.C. on Sunday, June 8 at 8 p.m. at Red Bear Brewing Co. 

Among the songs he will perform will be “Bear Soup,” the fourth installment in his beloved bear song anthology series. Following fan favorites like “Bears,” “Round in All the Right Places,” and “Nerdy Bear,” this high-energy, bass-thumping banger celebrates body positivity, joyful indulgence, and the vibrant spirit of the bear subculture.

For more details, visit Tom Goss’s website.

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Music & Concerts

Kylie brings ‘Tension’ tour to D.C.

Performance on Tuesday at Capital One Arena

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Kylie Minogue visits D.C. on Tuesday.

Aussie pop icon Kylie Minogue brings her acclaimed “Tension” world tour to D.C. next Tuesday at 7:30 p.m. at the Capital One Arena. Tickets are still available at Ticketmaster.

The show features songs spanning her long career, from 1987 debut single, “The Loco-Motion,” to “Padam, Padam” from her album, “Tension.”

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