A hunk of
attitude, just like dad
Lisa Marie Presley/Angela McCluskey
Paradise, Boston, Massachusetts
May 8, 2005
by Marc Hirsh
[photo taken by Marc Hirsh]
Of all the performers who’ve ever set foot on the Paradise
stage over the years, Lisa Marie Presley undoubtedly has the greatest
personal
fortune. Something like that can be a liability for a singer trying to
establish herself as a mold-breaking rebel on par with Pink (who
appears on
Presley’s new Now What) but Sunday
night’s show suggested a performer capable of pulling off the attitude,
even if
the material didn’t quite back her up.
With a slick backing band led by former Aimee Mann guitarist
Michael Lockwood, Presley’s snarly pop songs were serviceable enough,
if nuance-free
and a bit monotonous – practically each one featured insistent
mid-tempo
guitars that gave way to roaring choruses as she sang in a voice
reminiscent of
the Motels’ more powerful Martha Davis. A two-song acoustic set midway
through
should have mixed things up and avoided both the sameness of the songs
and the band’s
slavish duplication of the album versions, but “The Road Between” and
“Now
What” were both such archetypal acoustic confessionals that they simply
traded
one formula for another.
Still, 600 Lisa Marie Presley fans can’t be wrong – the
near-capacity crowd greeted her with open arms, and Presley repaid them
by
acknowledging just how much she owes them. After giving birthday wishes
and
other shoutouts to the Boston
members
of her website’s fan forum, she enlisted the audience in calling her
mother to
play “Raven” to her for Mother’s Day (the performance, as it turns out,
went
into Priscilla’s voice mail). Whatever her faults as an artist,
creating a
connection with her audience isn’t one of them, but if Presley has all
the
requisite skills and talents to be a viable performer, it’s still not
clear if that’s
enough to make her a good one.
Former Wild Colonials singer Angela McCluskey had no
such problems as the opening act and was nothing if not comfortable
onstage, singing
her adult pop songs in her husky but delicate voice. Playing to a house
that
was already nearly full, she made the most of it with numbers from last
year’s The Things We Do, including a tender
cover of The The’s “Love Is Stronger Than Death.”
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