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"Oh, I am going to rip this apart." Those were the first words that popped in my head when I was informed I'd be covering Paula Cole and Mandy Moore at 4th & B. If you aren't a woman in her thirties, an older couple or someone who loves "Dawson's Creek," how could you enjoy this performance? Well, to be honest, it wasn't bad at all.
Chris Stills, son of Stephen Stills of Crosby, Stills & Nash fame, opened the show. I only caught the last couple of songs because I had no idea there was another act. Call it good research, but I missed his show. What I did catch sounded pretty good, though not my "cup o' tea," which ended up being the theme of the night.
Mandy Moore takes the stage. I went into this thinking, "Didn't she do that generic late-'90s pop song 'Candy'?" Well, yes she did, but I was dead wrong to judge her based on her work as a 15-yearold, a definite dumb move in the first place. She has matured way more than I'd ever expected, in terms of song writing as well as song content. It's also refreshing to see a person actually singing on stage, instead of lip-synching and only doing three songs like another so-called "pop princess." Though I would never listen to a Mandy Moore CD nor pay for a ticket to one of her shows, she can sing well, plus she also dropped an f-bomb that I respected. Even the boyfriends who'd been dragged to see this show had to admit; they didn't have a terrible time.
After a brief intermission, Paula Cole goes to the piano on stage for her first song. This night was just full of surprises and revelations for me. Cole can sing … well, very well. In that first song, she hit, held and modulated such high notes, if the venue had glass instead of plastic cups, hands would've no doubt been bloody. Her stage presence is intriguing as well, as her face looks as if possessed by the devil and her dance moves across the stage are from Woodstock '69. After a long wait, fans of Cole will be stoked that she is releasing a new album because for what she does, she is very, very, very good.
So, there were only about 100 people there and the crowd was not really too diverse, which could be blamed on the free concert the Flaming Lips were having just a few miles down, but the concert in its context, was really good. I went into it thinking of all the ways I could destroy it and how I would only have to stay for a few songs to get the whole concert, but truth is, I felt bad leaving early near the end of Cole's set. Hate to say it, but I actually had a pretty alright time.
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