Recently by Erin Gulden

Three or four years ago I was invited to VIP party at Myth Nightclub. All night, the party promoters kept promising that there would be a surprise that would “blow our minds.” Around midnight, the stage lights went on, the fog machine started up, and a beautiful, svelte blonde in a schoolgirl outfit took center stage. For the next 15 minutes this blonde did her best Britney, lip-synching to all of the pop princesses hits. She was pretty convincing.

Then her wig fell off.

Last night, in front of a packed, but not sold-out, crowd at the Target Center, the former princess of pop did a much more expensive version of that  Myth show. Her Circus tour has backup dancers, costumes by Dsquared , acrobats, clowns, and all sorts of aerial apparatus, but it also has a beautiful, not-as-svelte-as-she-once-was blonde at center stage, lip-synching to all her greatest hits. Her wig never fell off, but her roots were definitely showing.

Read more.

It has been more than a decade since the original Rent craze swept the country, and though Broadway moved on after the show closed on June 1, 2008, many fans clearly haven’t. The Orpheum was packed for the Broadway tour’s opening night, starring original cast members (and stars of the big screen version) Adam Pascal (Roger) and the absolutely amazing Anthony Rapp (Mark).

Read more.

Recently, Ron Rosenbaum wrote a—well a rant, really, for Slate.com titled “The Worst Pop Singer Ever”, in which he used the recent death of painter Andrew Wyeth, whose work is arguably both dreadfully sentimental crap and American genius, to account for the unfathomable popularity of the Piano Man, Billy Joel.

Read more.

It’s hard to think of Angus Young as a guitar god. The ridiculous schoolboy outfit. The onstage theatrics and stripteases. These are the kinds of antics usually employed by guys who are trying to cover their less-than-stellar chops (the boys from KISS and Slipknot come to mind). And maybe you don’t consider Young to be up there with Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton, or Stevie Ray Vaughan. Rolling Stone sure doesn’t. In the magazine’s 2003 list of 100 greatest guitar players, Hendrix, Clapton, and Vaughan made the top ten.

Young was number ninety-six.

But what do editors know?  In 2004, Guitar World polled it's readers for fan favorites, and Angus and brother Malcolm (apparently, they come in a pair) ranked number three. The people had spoken: they love AC/DC, and it was never more apparent than at the Xcel last night.



It was the second of AC/DC’s sold-out stops in St. Paul as part of their Black Ice tour. I wasn’t at the first show, but the guy next to me was, and he said little had changed. AC/DC doesn’t put on a concert for their fans; they throw a party. For this celebration, a fire-spitting train crashed onto the stage to open the concert with “Rock ‘n Roll Train,” they lit up the arena with pyrotechnics during “TNT,” a giant blow-up doll named Rosie came out to tap her foot (really) to her signature song before disappearing backstage, and a giant bell descended from the ceiling just so lead singer Brian Johnson could swing on it to start off “Hell’s Bells.” Every song had some sort of theatrical element—whether it was a graphic cartoon playing in the background or crotch-shots of Angus doing his famous hop. AC/DC knows you’ve heard the songs before, so they throw in a little extra for your $100-plus seat.

But the most amazing ten minutes of the night came during Angus’s-the people’s guitar god—solo at the end of “Let There Be Rock.” Because once Angus took center stage—then a platform above the stage, then the catwalk and a platform in the middle of the arena that rose to ten feet, back to the middle of the stage, back to the catwalk—the fifty-three year old ran up and down the stage, playing the entire time, never missing a note. The crowd went crazy, and Angus loved every second of it. He had shed his shirt and jacket, leaving only his small schoolboy shorts, his long, sweat-drenched hair, his guitar, and 13,000 screaming fans. If he thought the crowd was getting bored, he would play one-handed for a while—while running, hopping, goading the crowd. It was the last song before the encore, and even without “Highway to Hell” and “For Those About to Rock” (my only disappointment of the night, no “Who Made Who”), the crowd would have left happy. AC/DC had put on an amazing show, with Angus at the center.

Sometimes the people are right.

Read more.

I don’t know why Broadway has become a dumping ground for American Idol contenders. The show (which I love, by the way) is supposed to be a search for the next great American pop star. A Christina Aguilera or Britney Spears—not a Bernadette Peters. So whenever I see that Clay Aiken is starring in Spamalot, or Fantasia is in The Color Purple, or half the cast of Rent is made up of AI rejects, I can’t help but feel bad that Broadway has had to turn to these pop-culture footnotes in order to sell tickets. Last night, American Idol season-five winner Taylor Hicks was absent from his usual role as Teen Angel in the touring production of Grease (it seems he had previous New Year’s plans and will only grace the Orpheum for the Jan. 2-4 performances).

He wasn’t missed.

Read more.

Sorry Cyndi Lauper fans, this post—and Macy’s 2008 '80s-themed “Pop Candy Arcade” Glamorama—was all about MC Hammer.

 

Well actually, the blockbuster concert/fashion show/fundraiser for the Children's Cancer Research Fund, now in its seventeenth year, is about kids like Josh Abbott, a brain tumor survivor who started the evening off with a rousingly appropriate “Yo, let’s start this” to a packed crowd at the Orpheum. But by the time the first models took the stage, the checks had been written, first cocktails downed, and the crowd was ready for a show.

 

And they got it. The crowd rocked along as models sporting Celine, Donna Karan, Marc Jacobs, Just Cavalli, and Tommy Hilfiger did their little turns (or, in some cringe-worthy cases, danced) to Prince, Bell Biv DeVoe, Michael Jackson, and other '80s/mid-90s delights. But the real magic happened after MC Hammer, donning a sleek white track suit, joined by no less than ten pop-and-lockin’ back-up dancers, came out blazing. He killed with “Turn This Motha Out” and “Two Legit Too Quit”—I mean, the man can move.

 

Looking half his forty-six years, he used every bit of the stage, as well as every watt of energy the enthusiastic crowd put out. And when he left the stage without performing his signature “ U Can’t Touch This,” effectively taking the joy, hopes, and dreams of the audience with him, he came back almost immediately, playfully asking us whether he forgot something before the “Superfreak” sample started and the crowd went totally mental. We loved every second of it—and he loved that we loved it. It was a night to celebrate survivors, and MC proved last night that he too had persevered.

 

Not that I am comparing what MC Hammer did to surviving cancer, but the thing you have to understand about Stanley Kirk Burrell, who became “Hammer” when he worked as a ball boy for the Oakland A’s and one of the coaches decided he looked like Hammerin’ Hank Aaron, is that he was a normal guy who spent four years in the Navy, started singing in some clubs, and became an overnight sensation when he decided to sample a Rick James song. “U Can’t Touch This” was everywhere. “Stop, Hammer Time,” was a national catchphrase. People wore Hammer Pants, seriously yo, Hammer Pants. And they thought they looked good. The ball boy from O-town, overnight, had more money and fame than he could have imagined. He won three Grammys, released one more mega-hit signal, and then fell off the face of the Earth.

 

Actually, it might have been better if he just disappeared. But Hammer instead became the butt of the joke—the pants, the eyeglasses, the highly publicized bankruptcy he faced for a staggering $14 million in debt. The man is given credit (by some, and by all means, discuss) as the first hip-hop artist to bring sampling of pop oldies into the mainstream, make it OK for advertisers to tap hip-hop artists as spokespeople, and he was tight with Tupac. But all that was forgotten. He was more fun as a punch line than a pity case.

 

But Hammer didn’t stop. He found god and became an ordained minister. He got married and has five kids. He’s started a website. Designers like Dior Homme and Louis Vuitton are creating Hammer Pant–esque styles for their Fall/Winter 08–09 lines. And he happily accepted an invitation to perform at a concert benefiting Children's Cancer Research, and, to steal a phrase from a coworker, MC pounded.

 

Cyndi closed the night with “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun,” and the girls did, and they danced. Then we hit the after-party and had a little more.

I fell in love with Neil Diamond the way most twentysomething ladies do these days, in college at the Delta Chi keggers. The mostly East Coast–bred boys knew Neil had a way with the ladies. Hand a girl a beer, play “Forever in Bluejeans,” and watch them melt. It worked, on me at least, because I’ve seen Diamond in concert a few times since, and while the man is getting old, the show never does.

Which made me wonder last night in the Xcel, as Diamond played his second sold-out show (he played two sold-out shows at the Target Center in 2005), performing to a mix of twenty- to forty-something couples, groups of ladies out for a night, and even a few dudes traveling in packs, chugging beer, and yelling things like, “My mom LOVES you man!”—what keeps these crowds coming back for a show that never really changes?

Diamond’s always been an entertainer, letting his sequin shirts, catchy sing-along songs, and smarmy smiles cover the fact that he’s never really broken much musical ground during his forty-plus-year career, instead quietly turning out hit after hit. His songs and his sound have stayed the same for most of those decades, yet the crowd still got to its feet and cheered as a pre-show announcement let us know that Diamond would be the sole performer that night, and he would be performing without an intermission.

This is going to be a short show, I thought. And as he made his way out to the stage, opening with a few new, slower songs off his recent number one album, Home Before Dark, it was apparent he had lost a step or two since that Target Center show three years ago. His voice cracked a few more times, it took him a little longer to sashay his way across the stage, and he could muster, at most, two upbeat songs in a row, taking a little longer to catch his breath before breaking into longer slow sets. He’s traded in his sequins for a black shirt with a muted sheen, and his guitar lays on his sixty-seven-year-old belly as he lovingly extends his hands out to the crowd. But as the twenty-ish dude behind me said to his girlfriend when Diamond started singing the opening lines of “You Don’t Send Me Flowers,” to a backup singer: “Dude is still a fucking player.”

Which, of course, is why the crowds keep coming back. Neil knows how to tease a crowd, how to keep them interested and anticipating. He didn’t come out of the gates with his old favorites, he made us sit through the new stuff, reminding us how much we are loved and appreciated with blown kisses and smarmy smiles. “I’m so glad you’re here tonight,” he crooned after the third unfamiliar song, “Because it’s terribly lonely up here without you.” The crowd swooned, and he continued. “We’re here to make love tonight, in a manner of speaking.” Oh,dear. “We’re going to make beautiful noises before we go, and leave our hearts on the stage—for you.” He broke into “Love on the Rocks,” and the crowd was his. The theme carried on for the rest of the night as he made us wait through five down-tempo songs before proclaiming “It’s time to dance,” and breaking into “Cherry, Cherry,” followed by “Thank the Lord for the Nighttime,” while the crowd rocked along with every strum of the guitar. When Neil moved, we moved. When Neil cocked his hip, we swooned. He slowed things down again for more new material, (including the great “Pretty Amazing Grace,” the only piece of new material to get a full standing ovation), for a full set before rewarding us with “Solitary Man” and “Forever in Bluejeans.” The back-and-forth continued for two hours and twenty songs, before he abruptly left the stage after a low-key solo performance of “Hell Yeah” off 2005’s 12 Songs. 

It was the ultimate tease. But we knew Neil wouldn’t send us out into the hot summer night without hearing a few of the favorites he forgot—without satisfying our need to dance one more time. He, after all, loves us too much. And he didn’t make us wait long, as the band struck up “Cracklin’ Rose,” and we stayed on our feet through “America” and his traditional closer “Brother Love's Traveling Salvation Show.” And once again, Diamond didn’t disappoint.

Popular culture hasn’t always been kind in its portrayal of Star Wars fans, who are often perceived as chubby guys with glasses who live in their parents’ basement, playing scenes of Natalie Portman running in slow motion over and over. Obviously, the six-part series has a broader appeal, or it would never have amassed more than $4 billion in worldwide box office. And on Saturday morning at the Science Museum, as a family-dominated crowd armed with point-and-shoots waited in line to see Star Wars: Where Science Meets Imagination during its last U.S. stop, surrounded by licensed recreationists donning pitch-perfect replica costumes (there was even a Darth Vader with the ominous-sounding breathing apparatus), it became apparent that even science has been Disneyfied.

At first, it did feel more like a day at Disney World than a day at a museum. Kids with newly purchased plastic light sabers (the Science Museum didn’t miss a single merchandising opportunity with this exhibit) and shirts emblazoned with Anakin and Yoda, chased down Princess Leia and Luke Skywalker for pictures. Storm troopers posed with preschoolers (and, yes, this reporter) while parents snapped away, and everywhere you turned you heard someone humming John William’s unmistakable theme. The excitement in the lines outside the U.S. Bank Great Hall that housed the exhibit was palpable, as if the crowd was about to take a plunge on a ten-story-tall flume ride. Or even better, see a surprise screening of the yet-to-be-filmed seventh movie.

All distractions melted away as the line snaked into the hall and the crowd was met with perhaps the most impressive artifact from the sci-fi films, the actual landspeeder that zooms Luke across the opening scenes of the first film. After that, it was true Hollywood magic. There were costumes—Hans Solo, a giant Chewbacca, post-apocalyptic Tusken Raiders—and dozens of miniature scale models, including Imperial Star Destroyers from the first films and the armored tanks in the epic Episode I battles. There was a C3PO that had been stripped of his gold façade to expose the thousands of wires underneath, and a Yoda puppet sat next to the Jedi training remote. For fans, it was as close to these six movies as they’re ever going to get.

But amidst the props and models safely shielded by walls of Plexiglas there was also a kind of magic Hollywood can never replicate. Staying true to the SMM’s mission to help spread scientific knowledge, twenty interactive components kept the smallest visitors in disarming awe. While their parents snapped picture after picture of Obi-Wan’s robes, kids were at the magnetic propulsion lab gasping as the Lego carts they created, which zoomed across a table powered by nothing but the force created by opposing magnetic poles. They sat wide-eyed in front of a screen, watching as the buttons they pushed controlled the emotions of the animated face before them. They struggled to make a real life robot walk across a platform, a task the Imperial All-Terrain Transports from Episode V made look so easy. On a Saturday morning, among all the shiny souvenirs and flashes coming from their parents’ cameras, they learned a little something.

And as they left, they could still have their picture taken in front of a green screen and pasted onto Anakin’s body—a souvenir that will surely be used to embarrass them years in the future.

Now, that’s magic.

Star Wars runs through August 24 at the Science Museum of Minnesota.

When rock stars and models get together, it’s usually the models who make the rock stars look good. Last night, at Voltage: Fashion Amplified, it didn’t quite work out that way. Voltage is an annual showcase of the best up-and-coming TC design scene (Abby Van Ness has the fashion lowdown on StyleParlor) accompanied by the music of up-and-coming TC bands. The models—and the clothes—are supposed to take center stage, and the six live bands are essentially arm candy, there to make the girls look better and add a little oomph to the show.  Together, good music and good fashion should have made for a hot night. But as many of the girls and fashions fell flat, the bands were left to pick up the slack—and not everyone was up to the task.

Zibra Zibra was, but even they fought to keep the energy level up. Outfitted in spandex superhero suits, purple crotchless cowboy chaps (which made me uncomfortable, even with tights underneath), and a zebra-striped onesie courtesy of a featured designer (all the bands were outfitted by designers), the clothes more than matched the band’s frenetic vibe. While the boys in the band were thrashing around onstage and having a ball, the inexperienced models, donning hippie-ish fashions from Standard Issue and Pomije, seemed lost and uncomfortable on the runway. The crowd wasn’t into it, either, mostly because First Ave. had packed the hall so tightly that moving—much less dancing—was out of the question. By the time Zibra Zibra left the stage, so much energy had drained out of the room that the show’s voltage meter was barely twitching.

And it stayed that way through the next two bands. The Haves Have It, led by two chicks with electric guitars (full disclosure: I’ve never liked chicks with electric guitars), failed to connect with the crowd. The music seemed to fit seamlessly with the Belle and Calpurnia Peaches fashions—loud and disjointed—but it wasn’t exactly an aesthetically pleasing match. Then, with the crowd already in a mild coma, it came time for the show’s “breather,” wherein pretty, romantic fashions by Max Lohrbach and George Moskal met with the band Bella Kosha. Unfortunately, the band sounds just like its name: pretty kosher. No risks, just two girls (vocals, violin) in snooze-inducing black dresses supported by three guys (guitar, percussion) in snooze-inducing tuxedos pants playing a somnambulant set marred by technical problems.

By that time people were yawning and I was reduced to begging for more crotchless chaps. What I got instead was local rock-scene staples White Light Riot, but that was enough. Dressed up like Panic At the Disco (long, colorful velvet coats, waistcoats, top hats, etc.), White Light came to the stage with all the gusto of a band that dreams of playing Madison Square Garden. Their energy seemed to inspire the girls onstage, many now feeling comfortable on their third trip down the runway. Some even had a spring in their step while modeling Amanda Christine and local Project Runway alum Katherine Gerdes. And, since the crowd had been cut by a third after the two previous sleepers, there were even—gasp!—hints of movement throughout the thinned crowd.

Then, as if the show’s producers could sense they had revived a dying crowd, they sent hip-hop hybrid MC/VL to add the final shot of adrenaline. Tall, skinny, curly-haired Viscious Lee in white jeans, white wind jacket, and short, mustachioed Mighty Clyde in a red version of the same, the boys looked like they’d stepped out of a Def Jam look-book circa 1985, and had a sound to match: Beastie Boys and Run-DMC-inspired jams that sampled everyone from AC/DC to Aretha.

With the freedom of two mikes and no clunky guitars, MC and VL took command of the runway before the models came out, strutting, rapping, and using every inch of available space to whip the crowd up. By the time the girls started down the runway, donning Swank Dollar and Red Shoe’s eighties-inspired outfits, the ladies were strutting as well, energized—and occasional harassed by—the emcees, who seemed to be living out a model-filled rap video fantasy. The crowd went wild—at least as wild as they were going to get—dancing, waving and, for the first time all night, actually smiling.

The show should have ended there. It was 11 p.m., and three hours of fashion-rock fusion felt like more than enough. So, as the last band of the night, The Birthday Suits, took the stage, most of the crowd, including my ride, decided to dip out early. From what I hear, I didn’t miss much, and the buzz on Seventh Street was all about the two white-boy emcees who saved the show.

Maybe next year Voltage should stick to the hip-hop scene. Move over rockers, the emcees are coming to steal your girls.