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Nikka Costa – World Café Live – Philadelphia PA – October 21, 2008 

At Nikka Costa’s new tour they were selling t-shirts with a lightning bolt and 70s-styled fat fonts which read “The return of the funky white bitch.” 

After watching Costa stalk the boards for nearly two hours all I can say is “Hallelujah! Yea, she is back!”  Costa, the daughter of jazz legend Don Costa (Frank Sinatra was her Godfather) has deep-fried soul down to the core. 

She is a funky diva in the tradition of Tina Turner, Chaka Khan, Millie Jackson, Patti Labelle and number of soul mamas.  She is a singer out of time – if she were around in the 60s or 70s she’d have been huge. 

Instead, after two critically acclaimed but mostly overlooked major label releases she comes back swinging on a smaller label – but it is a revived, legendary soul label, Stax; home of Otis Redding, Sam and Dave, Booker T and the MGs and Isaac Hayes.  Her album may not have as much corporate backing, but it’s got just as much fire. 

This do-it-yourself credo is achieved in her latest live gigs (which she referred to as an Obama-styled grass roots tour) in which Costa testified and screamed, jammed, cooed, burned, crammed and creamed. 

With a whip-tight backing band full of brassy horns and enough wocka-wocka guitar magic to make Isaac Hayes blush, Costa sizzled with a retro abandon that more mannered current divas would just envy.  She even lost herself so much in the encore ballad “I Wish I Loved You Less” that she teasingly slipped her hand deep inside her pants – but it wasn’t gratuitous and dirty, it was fun and frisky. 

She’d tell her guitarist “Gimme some of that chicken shit” and get a scratching funky sound straight outta a blaxploitation flick.  Songs like the almost-hit “Everybody Got Their Something,” “Keep Pushing,” “Cry Baby” and “Happy in the Morning” built up a playful soulful sweat that got every booty bumpin’. 

The funky white bitch is back! 

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SIMPLY WONDER-FUL... 

It's a simple mathematical equation. Stevie Wonder + Hollywood Bowl = one special night of music. After the passing of his beloved mother, Lula Hardaway, in June of 2006, Wonder, long absent from the touring circuit, has returned to live performance. He's currently finishing up a US leg and getting set for an European jaunt beginning in September. On Monday, July 7th, Stevie Wonder was back on his home turf performing a spectacular two and a half hour show for a packed hometown crowd at The Hollywood Bowl, which included legendary Motown Records icon, Berry Gordy and Adam Levine of Maroon 5. 

Boasting a ridiculously rich catalog of timeless classics spanning the Sixties though today, Wonder simply owns the concert stage, embracing his time honored legacy with a contagious enthusiasm and winning exuberance. Kicking off a typically incandescent set, Wonder dipped heavily into his 1980 LP, Hotter Than July and knocked out five gems from the record including the set opener "As If You Read My Mind," "Master Blaster (Jammin')", "Did I Hear You Say You Love Me", "All I Do" and a rare airing of the moody "Rocket Love." Drawing from all facets of his illustrious career, Wonder's set indisputably proved he's a master stylist, comfortable in a myriad of musical idioms including R&B, pop, funk, soul, jazz, reggae, prog-rock, avant-garde and Tin Pan Alley pop. 

Part of the fun of a Stevie Wonder show is witnessing the pure joy and spirit that he exudes while performing. Whether executing complex piano motifs or stomping clavinet grooves or unleashing supernatural acts of elastic vocal acrobatics, it's clear that Wonder revels in the enjoyment of being in the moment, uniting artist and crowd in a wondrous musical communion. Nestled alongside a slew of quintessential Wonder penned classics like "Sir Duke," "I Wish," "Isn't She Lovely" and "Do I Do," Wonder also drew heavily from his 1973 album, Innervisions; his impressive thirteen-piece band, ably led by bassist Nathan Watts, interpreted a winning cross section of material from that seminal album including "Higher Ground," the Latin-tinged "Don't You Worry 'Bout A Thing," the breezy majestic pop of  "Golden Lady" and the funktastic, urban-charged anthem, "Living For The City," its gritty message resonating even stronger today than when it was first recorded more than three decades ago. 

During the show, Wonder also unveiled a few lesser played tracks from his double-album masterpiece, Songs In The Key Of Life, embracing the picture perfect pop of "Knocks Me Off My Feet" and a beautiful and moving rendition of "If It's Magic," the solitary harp stylings provided by a member of the 25-piece orchestra, who also lent their rich and supple instrumental flourishes to a number of songs in the set. Boding well for his next musical project, Wonder also introduced a promising new song, "Keep Foolin' Yourself Baby", which the artist informed the audience that the song is earmarked for his next CD, provisionally titled Through the Eyes of Wonder. Other surprises were a funky, vocoder flavored  version of The Spinners' "People Make The World Go 'Round", the instrumental "Spain" by Chick Corea and "You Are The Sunshine Of My Life," which showcased a radio contest winner on duel lead vocals with Wonder. 

The show was also a family affair in the truest sense of the word; Wonder's daughter, Aisha (she was the inspiration behind "Isn't She Lovely") sang strong background vocals throughout the show. His older son, Mumtaz, lent his soulful lead vocal expertise to a dynamic mini-reading of "Ribbon In The Sky" while his six-year old son, Kailand, sat in on a miniature drum kit during show closer, "Superstition," which also featured Howard Hewitt, former lead singer of Shalamar, on guest vocals.

This was one of very few KT Tunstall US shows in 2007 to promote Drastic Fantastic -- Tunstall's follow-up to last year's slow-burning smash CD Eye to the Telescope.

This Thanksgiving-eve show was a low-key affair.  Tunstall didn't even bring her whole band, just doing an acoustic set with only herself on guitar and vocals, a drummer and two female backing vocalists. 

And yet she rocked this legendary venue, with her enthusiasm, strong vocals, sweet-natured charm and already-rock-solid songbook easily seducing the packed house.

You knew you were in for a different night early on, when an stripped-down version of the normally lush "Other Side of the World" stunned with new textures and and even more direct longing than the band performances. 

This was just the first of many wonderful surprises -- the most significant of which is how well the songs of Drastic Fantastic, which has seemed to receive more public resistance than the debut album, held up with the earlier, more well-known tunes.

Tunstall gave a hilarious insight into the writer's head when she explained her motivation behind writing the good-natured tune "Ashes."  Apparently, Tunstall was surfing the net and stumbled across a site which offered to take the cremated ashes of family members and pets and turn them into jewelry.  "You can turn man's best friend into a girl's best friend," she cracked.

Other new songs which stood out were her current-kinda-hit "Hold On" -- in which Tunstall gamely mocked her own beat-boxing skills -- as well as the wonderfully well-grounded (for an entertainer) "Saving My Face," which argues for aging naturally.

Of course it goes without saying that the songs from Telescope rocked the house, with "Another Place To Fall," "Under the Weather," "Stopping the Love" and "Black Horse and the Cherry Tree" keeping the audience rapt.  By the time she wound down with a propulsive "Suddenly I See," the audience was totally in her hand.

This concert was a hell of a place-holder for Tunstall.  Still, as much as I enjoyed this show, I'm looking forward to her returning again with a full band.

Jay S. Jacobs

Five For Fighting & Chantal Kreviazuk - The Keswick Theater - Glenside PA - May 9, 2007

John Ondrasik is not just a singer, he is an old-school storyteller, as demonstrated in the live setting.  Whether sitting at the piano or standing alone with a guitar, Ondrasik had the audience rapt with his gorgeous melodies and warm, funny explanations of the songs' inspiration.

These could be tongue-in-cheek (a winking story of realizing he was getting old because he heard his song "Easy Tonight" played at a bar by a guitarist who told him he learned the song as a kid) or heartfelt (the beautiful story about the soldier and his father who inspired the song "Two Lights.") 

Of course the stories wouldn't work if the music wasn't good, so Ondrasik kept the beautiful melodies coming.  He did his new charity single "World" with warmth and skill.  There was also a beautiful acoustic version of perhaps his most impressive song -- "If God Made You" which was dedicated to his children -- as well as a rollicking ode to his '65 Camaro.

One of the few semi-missteps was when Ondrasik decided to do a slightly flamboyant cover of one of the last songs in the world that you'd expect anyone to try to cover -- Paul Simon's "50 Ways to Leave Your Lover."  Not that it is a bad song, it is just a song that is so particular to its author.  More importantly, Ondrasik played the song way too broadly, going for a wink rather than the tongue-in-cheek seriousness of the original. 

He covered that gaffe quickly, though, teasing a heckler who yelled out for "100 Years" by saying that Billy Joel told him to always play the hits last.  Then he settled into the bench and started tinkling the very recognizable intro to "Superman (It Ain't Easy)," his even bigger smash from 2001.  Then he dove right into the sweetly yearning "100 Years," closing the show on a warm high.

Opening act Chantal Kreviazuk -- who has never quite become the recording star she deserves to be, but has become an in-demand songwriter-for-hire for the likes of Avril Lavigne, Christina Aguilera and Pink -- was very much FFF's equal, doing a charming act full of new songs ("Ghosts of You," "Wonderful"), oldie-almost-hits ("God Made Me") and some soundtrack faves ("Time" and "Feels Like Home.")  Like Ondrasik, Kreviazuk is talented at stage banter and has a warm piano-based sound.  It was an inspired pairing.

Jay S. Jacobs

The best live rock band in the world -- Fountains of Wayne? 

It's not so far-fetched. 

The Fountains rocked the joint recently in this gig, a show which only benefited by the venue's colorful history (it was a burlesque joint in the 1920s).  This past seediness lent depth and color to FOW's power pop short stories of desperate outsiders trying to make it in a world that really doesn't give a shit about them.

The band has a mastery of styles and irony that if possible is even stronger in person than on their CDs.  For example there is the spaghetti-western dry lament "Hackensack," in which a loser in a small town in New Jersey still pines away after a first-grade crush, who has since become an A-List actress.  Beyond being a surprisingly beautiful song, the depths of the narrator's self-delusion is touching.   

Then there are the lovely flamenco touches of "Hey, Julie" in which a worker drone has only his girlfriend to look forward to in life.  The band turns up the rock on "Bright Future In Sales," about a kid out of college who is being overwhelmed by his first NYC job, perhaps because he is getting plastered every night in Manhattan.  They also slammed out the grunge-flavored early hit "Radiation Vibe." 

By the time the familiar neuvo-Cars power chords of their biggest hit -- the fractured MILF fantasy "Stacy's Mom" -- rang out over the crowd, they had the audience eating out of their hands.  Great tunes, funny banter... and there were periodic jokes at the expense of Neil Sedaka (who they had backed in concert in New York the night before.)  What more can you ask for in a rock show?