I went to Doc Severinsen’s concert Friday night with the Minnesota Orchestra for probably the same reason many people did—it was his last. The eighty-year-old icon is retiring to Mexico with his wife, Emily. According to insiders, he joked often about “pulling an Artie Shaw” and disappearing from the scene without warning. I clearly wasn’t the only one there who was glad to have the opportunity to toast this consummate showman’s career.

Doc came onstage in signature style, wearing a purple jacket, a hot pink shirt, and lime green leather pants, as the orchestra played the theme song to The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. “You’re looking at one of the luckiest human beings who ever lived,” Doc said, reflecting on his fourteen-year tenure as principal pops conductor for the Minnesota Orchestra. He shared some advice he got from Johnny: “Don’t stay too long at the fair—quit while you’re ahead.”

But the word on the street is that he’s planning to keep practicing. The orchestra gave him the title “Pops Director Emeritus,” to which Doc responded, “If you think I’m not going to hold them to that!”

The program was a mix of light classical fare, big band music from the Tommy Dorsey/Frank Sinatra era with Lynn Roberts crooning the hits, and operatic favorites belted out by tenor Joseph Wolverton.

The first half ended with Louis Prima’s “Sing, Sing, Sing.” Ed Shaughnessy, a twenty-nine-year veteran of the Tonight Show band, gave a spectacular solo, and Doc sent blazing brass notes into the third balcony with an extroverted playing style that could come only from a man most comfortable in lime green pants.

Part of the joy of a concert like this is the audience it draws—and how Orchestra Hall regulars react. One patron sitting behind me in the second tier clapped along to pretty much everything. My seatmate commented, “This is definitely not a classical audience,” when the audience broke out in applause at one of the more exhilarating moments of Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 4. But maybe the regulars could benefit from relearning to respond to music off script. The spontaneous applause struck me as a completely appropriate response to what the music communicated. 

Doc’s second-half entrance (in an even more sparkling sequined purple jacket, this time with hot pink pants) was all but trumped by the bling of the Minnesota Orchestra’s trumpet section. Doc said, “You’re wearing my clothes!” (Turned out he meant it literally—the section had talked his manager into sending them a selection of splashy vests from Doc’s closet.) But the real surprise was the four-trumpet tribute composed by Chuck Lazarus; “Doc’s New Digs” shimmered in virtuosic display like the sequins in Doc’s flashy attire, and the quoted fragments of the Tonight Show theme won appreciative laughter from the audience. (Doc joked he recorded it and it was going to be his new doorbell.)

After Paul Grangaard, the Orchestra’s board chair, presented Doc with a retirement gift—a signed 1928 Turandot program from the Metropolitan Opera—he shared an anecdote from his former trumpet teacher, who called Doc the “best, most versatile trumpet player in the world.” Doc earned that compliment again, sobbing out “Caruso” with the heart-on-your-sleeve emotion of a twenty-year-old Italian, completely trouncing the tenor in both virtuosic control and pure soul.

An uncharacteristically frayed-sounding Minnesota Chorale joined for several numbers, recovering in time to end the program with “O Holy Night” in a celebratory, if not seasonal, spirit.

I hope Doc doesn’t stay too long at the Mexican fair, and makes good on his emeritus title.

After spending last week at South by Southwest seeing tons of small shows on tiny bar stages, a sold-out First Avenue felt like a concert arena last night for The Roots.

Why are you looking at a picture of a photo pass instead of a picture of The Roots? Because First Ave.'s never given me a photo pass before, so I wasn't expecting one and thus didn't bring my camera. It's too bad, because there were tons of photo ops.

First Avenue was on its game last night. The lights and sound were better than any other show I've seen there in about a year. Though I regrettably missed the opening acts—Minneapolis rapper Muja Messiah and California hip-hoppers Zion 1—I was there when The Roots came on. The show started with the band parading stage left through the crowd, into the back of the club, and down the stairs stage right, playing horns and percussion the whole time.

Behind the stage, the words "THE ROOTS" shone in giant aqua block letters against on a black screen. The audience was a mix of races and sexes, mostly in their twenties and thirties, all singing along and dancing. There was a great energy in the air.

The Roots are pioneers of hip-hop. Their funky, bluesy brand is full-sounding—tuba- and bass-heavy, with lots of keyboards and drums, plus guitar, trumpet, trombone, and tambourine. As the genre has developed, this group has resisted selling out and becoming dirty rappers, instead continuing to create rich songs using complex instrumentation, and rapping about poverty, pain, and politics.

The electric bassist did a solo, scatting while playing. He broke a string and scatted while replacing it and tuning his instrument. He tapped into his distortion pedal for a moment, brought it back and ended his solo with the bass line to the Sugarhill Gang's "Rapper's Delight." Questlove launched into a drum solo from there, which led into a Hendrix-style guitar jam backed up by bass, drums, and tuba—with the tuba player dancing back and forth across the stage.

The Roots played a nice balance of tunes off both old CDs (Do You Want More?!!??!) and new (Game Theory). They also covered songs (or portions of songs) as diverse as Talib Kweli's "Get By," a rendition of the "Star-Spangled Banner" with new lyrics (which I couldn't understand because people around me were talking too loudly), Kool & The Gang's "Jungle Boogie," and, in the encore, The Police's "Roxanne" and "Tom Jones's "It's Not Unusual."

After playing for almost two and a half hours, The Roots' energy never waned. This was one of those standout shows I know I'll still be reminiscing about years from now.

There are a few things that I admire about Christina Aguilera—her ability to just not care what her detractors say, how she parades her eensy frame around in those high-high-high Christian Louboutins, and those everlovin’ pipes.

Then I saw Aguilera doing James Brown on the Grammys—“It’s a Man’s Man’s Man’s World.” In case you missed it, she brought the house down. Soulful, smart, classy. I think it was one of the best tributes in the days after his death. I embarked on my pop adventure in an extremely optimistic mood.

The highlight for me was the opener. A true child of the ’80s, Aguilera bit right from Michael Jackson’s style. A video of Aguilera played while the band began, and as the video ended and the screen pulled up, a set of lighted stairs slid forward. Dressed in a three-piece white suit, white fedora, and white Louboutins, she danced up and down the stairs as she launched into “Back to Basics” and “Ain’t No Other Man.”

I’m not sure what happened early on in the set, but there was definitely a problem. Aguilera was either a full beat ahead of or behind the backup singers and band. Judging by her fingers in her ear I’d guess a monitor malfunction. Aguilera and crew were back on track by the end of the song and didn’t derail, or even lose steam, until the last note was sung in the entire show.

She changed wardrobe at least eight times, different iterations of her suit, some with skirts over, or robes trimmed in marabou, but also got right down to the bodysuit underneath. I have to give her (and her crew) credit for the quick changes. She has one hot body—but unlike many of her pop cohorts, and more like Madonna, she seems completely self-possessed. She’s no object.

The problematic stuff were the grouping of the songs and the frenzy of the production. It was too schizophrenic. The exemplar was the juxtaposition of the songs “Oh Mother” and “Enter the Circus.” Before the song, she spoke of the domestic violence in her childhood home, and how she turned it into something that made her stronger—and thanking her mother for leaving the abuser, Aguilera’s father. Then, “Enter the Circus” was literally a circus freak show, with a male audience member up on stage, Christina suddenly dressed as a dominatrix, suggesting rather graphic acts. Um, what? I thought. You kiss your mother with that mouth? Had “Oh Mother” been somewhere else on the set list, it would have worked better.

If the show’s production had been stripped down (pardon the pun) just even a bit, she would have been even better. Despite her powerhouse vocals, she sometimes got lost among the many band members, dancers, and music. She doesn’t need so much glitz—her four-octave voice can carry it.

Still, she successfully used her trademark melisma through some of her past hits, including an empowering version of “Beautiful,” a revved-up “Dirrty,” a wink to “Come On Over”, a vicious “Fighter,” and a sexy “Lady Marmalade,” with the signature Christina yowl. (I wasn’t so huge on the reggae version of “What a Girl Wants.”)

Aguilera is tiny, but she is a powerhouse. She’s a savvy businesswoman, receiving writing and producing credits on all her songs on the ’20s-’40s revival album Back to Basics, and her vocals are unmatched by other pop stars at this point. (I dare you to hate the Andrews Sisters-esque “Candyman.” Or at least not get it stuck in your head.) I love her for her ability to crank out those midrange power-soul notes, saving the Mariah Careyesque ones for just the right moment—they’re not her bread and butter. The soul sister thing works much better for her.

And they said Britney was the next Madonna . . .