Music & Concerts
Betty Who’s surprise guest wows
Kiesza performance thrills gay audience at Lincoln


Kiesza’s performance this week in D.C. had the largely gay audience cheering for more. (Photo courtesy of Kiesza)
You can tell how good a concert is by how much energy you feel in the room.
By that logic, I was clearly at a good concert earlier this week at the Lincoln Theater, where Betty Who and Kiesza performed to a packed crowed of mostly gay men.
Everyone was on their feet in the crowded theater for the near duration of the show, with both acts lasting more than two hours combined.
Confession: I had no idea who Kiesza was before the show. I’m still not even sure I know how to pronounce her stage name. I ended up at the Lincoln Theater earlier this week after buying a last-minute ticket on Craigslist because my friend is obsessed with Betty Who and had asked me to join him.
And I wasn’t the only person there who felt that way. On our way out, someone told me that he, too, was there only for Betty Who, but that Kiesza’s performance was “10 times better.”
That might be a bit of an exaggeration: Betty Who – one of the performers at last year’s Pride Festival – killed as usual. She performed a combination of her slower numbers as well as her more campy hits many will recognize, like “High Society.”
If you’re still not sure who she is, Google “Somebody Loves You gay proposal.” A large part of the performer’s fame – and a good reason for her cult popularity within the gay community – has to do with the gay marriage proposal, gone viral via YouTube, set to her song, “Somebody Loves You.”
These days, it often goes without saying that live vocal performances are nowhere near as strong as they are on the records that buffer singers’ real pipes with heavy autotune and sound editing. But Betty Who clearly offers an anomaly to that trend: Her vocals at the show were pitch-perfect and maybe even more interesting than her records.
I had already seen Betty Who perform at Pride. But the strongest portions of her show at the Lincoln Theater had more to do with her cute commentary between songs. For instance, in one of her more somber songs, she insisted on having a “moment” with a dude in the front row. She played a game with the audience, pitting each side of the theater against the other to see which group could sing the loudest. And later on, she stole someone’s phone and took selfies with the audience.
To be honest, she’s probably too big and too talented to be someone else’s opener in D.C., a city where she regularly performs, even if she isn’t exactly a household name like other female pop stars. Or if she’s relegated to being a “special guest” instead of the name at the top of the ticket, she should perform alongside bigger names like, for example, Katy Perry, who she opened for on the Australian leg of Perry’s tour.
But as an opener, she certainly did her job: By the time she blew a kiss to the audience and bounced off stage, the vibes in the room were already palpably positive, setting the stage for a high-energy Kiesza performance.
Even if you don’t know her name, you’ll recognize her biggest hit, “Hideaway,” which recently has been both a radio hit and a gay club classic. The song is catchy at best when piped in through speakers, but seeing it performed live was a jaw-dropper. As Kiesza sung, acrobats twisted and did splits on stage – but I missed a good portion of this because I was too busy looking around the theater, lit intermittently by strobe lights. Everyone was either singing or screaming, and seemed reluctant to slowly file out of the sold-out theater after Kiesza waved goodbye.
Both artists are young – Betty Who is 23 and Kiesza is 26. Their music, performance value, and substantial vocals provide the perfect response for music snobs who insist that music is dead and today’s pop can’t compare to the likes of Madonna and others from decades ago.
We bought tickets to see Betty Who, and ended up getting more than what we paid for with both artists. I didn’t compulsively download Kiesza’s album mid-concert like my friend did, but it was definitely worth his money.
Music & Concerts
Underdog glorious: a personal remembrance of Jill Sobule
Talented singer, songwriter died in house fire on May 1

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.
Music & Concerts
Tom Goss returns with ‘Bear Friends Furever Tour’
Out singer/songwriter to perform at Red Bear Brewing Co.

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.

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.”