Flibbertigibbet

Marc Ronson Concert

Marc Ronson is a British DJ - producer who has worked with a number of big names in pop music today including Christina Aguilera, Amy Winehouse, Lily Allen, and Robbie Williams. Well, after being behind the scenes for a long time, he has decided to get on the stage, so he put together a band and he plays lead guitar and a couple of other instruments. I went to see them last night at the Highline Ballroom.

Rumors were floated prior to the concert that Robbie Williams or Lily Allen might make an appearance. From Spin Magazine:

Ronson, the hot producer behind albums by Spin cover girl Amy Winehouse and Lily Allen, will celebrate the release of his solo album, Version, this Wednesday at NYC's Highline Ballroom, and he told SPIN.com that "a certain giant, male, mega-pop star from England" might be crossing the pond to perform with him.

Note the abundance of ambiguity. Important since Robbie Williams did not show.

The Highline Ballroom is a great space for a show. It has good sound, good lighting, and it's small. The downside being that it's small, so although the venue is intimate, it's a little too intimate should you -- as we did -- find yourself confronted with a pushy, bony, little woman determined to get up to the stage. Personally, I loved the space. I doubt there's any bad place to sit or stand in the whole place. Also, the small space limits ticket sales. The online tickets sold out pretty quickly.

Marc Ronson's band is a cover band, which is actually a lot of fun, especially because he spans several genres. Ronson himself is also super cute, which is good.

He did have several guests perform with him and most of them were quite enjoyable. There was Santogold (She's awesome), Daniel Merriweather (HOT), Alex Greenwald from Phantom Planet (Is he high?), and some rappers that I didn't recognize but I'm told are semi-famous. One of the rappers was a hoot.

We had a lot of fun, but we had a couple of complaints:

First, the set was very short. They really didn't play very many songs and several had no vocals. I think there were only about ten songs total. I think that if you're a cover band, you need to maximize the number of recognizable songs you play so that the audience has the joy of recognizing and participating in the songs with you. If you have no vocals, you're a really boring jam band because you're playing someone else's songs. (There. I said it.)

There was no encore. Of course, you're a cover band, but since Marc Ronson's CD dropped on Tuesday, you'd think that perhaps they'd play one of two of the more famous tracks, like the song that Robbie Williams performed.

One of the rappers did a rap about a kid named Ray who was picked on because everyone thought he was gay. The rap talks about Ray coming to the basketball park with a gun and shooting into the air to prove that he's tough and to tell everyone that he's tired of being picked on. The speaker in the rap even says that he threw the ball at Ray and I think if he had remained detached from the homophobia or even spoke out against it, it might not have been so bad. Instead, the song really sounded like it supported the homophobia even if it did sort of praise Ray for standing up for himself.

Conscious of the understatement for the purpose of making it more obvious I'll say there were a lot of gay men and women in the audience and these lyrics may at best be characterized as a misstep.

The whole set was fun, but seemed to go all over the place. The atmosphere was very much one of a bunch of friends getting together to jam to their favorite songs.

I only recognized a few of the covers: Ryan Adams "Amy" (A favorite song of mine), Britney Spears' "Toxic," Sir-Mix-a-lot's "Jump On It," Phantom Planet's "California." (The guy who sang "Amy" butchered it, unfortunately. I hope the album version is better.)

Santogold (linked above) opened for Ronson and I really think she was the best part of the show. Sure, cover bands are fun and all, but original stuff is more interesting. She's like a cross between Nelly Furtado and early No Doubt. I think she would do better with a band, but it was still very cool stuff.

So, anyway, there you have it. That's my scattershot review of the show last night. It was worth the $15 ticket, but it wasn't the best.