Concert review: Jingle Ball 2007

Local Top 40 station Star 94.1 (which is, yes, owned by ClearChannel, those corporate radio bastards) raises money for Becky’s House, a domestic violence shelter. The main fundraiser for the year is Jingle Ball, a multi-band concert that this year featured Vanessa Carlton, Lenny Kravitz, Duran Duran, and Matchbox 20. My lovely wife was kind enough to buy me (and her sister) a ticket as a Chanukah present, and we enjoyed ourselves at this awesome event earlier this evening. Following is my review (first name links to official site, last name/second word to wiki):

Vanessa Carlton:

A talented pianist and singer/songwriter who, while I’m sure was glad for the venue, exposure, and publicity, would be better heard in a club rather than the arena she played tonight (the San Diego Sports Arena). Her big hit, A Thousand Miles, was released in 2002, and she still has a loyal fanbase, but hasn’t seen much commercial success over the last couple of years. She only played 20 minutes (3 or 4 songs), and the songs all sounded pretty similar to me, but again, the atmosphere in an arena is not ideal for picking out lyrics and establishing an opinion about an artist one knows very little about.
Grade: B+

Lenny Kravitz:

Yowza! Lenny Kravitz is a guitar-rock stud with a peace and love streak that’s infectious and right up my alley. He ran all over the stage – and the arena during one song – getting the crowd pumped, playing a bunch of familiar tracks (including his rockin’ cover of the Guess Who’s American Woman) as well as a few new songs off the forthcoming Love Revolution CD. He’s got a terrific band backing him up, with a terrific lead guitarist who shredded mightily throughout. When Lenny’s 45 minutes were up, we were definitely left wanting more.
Grade: A

Duran Duran:

Being the 80s geek that I am, I was really looking forward to this part of the show. The intro raised the expectations even higher, since they’d auctioned off the rights to intro the band on stage to a local family. I should have known the show was going to go downhill when the band opened with Notorious, not one of their bigger hits from the 80s. They then proceeded to bore the audience with new material for a while before launching into, I kid you not, Planet Earth and Ordinary World, eventually pulling out a few moments of satisfaction and fun with Wild Boys, then making me go “Huh?” again with A View to a Kill and slogging through an uninspired rendition of Rio.
Look, Simon et al., I know you’re trying to promote new material. You’ve got a new CD coming out; you’re an artist, you need to create, I get that. But you’re on a bill with two major headlining acts for a charity show. The audience here didn’t come to sit through unrecognizable new songs; we came to dance and sing along to the tunes we grew up with. No Girls on Film? No Hungry Like the Wolf? Come ON!
Grade: D

Matchbox 20:

THIS is how you play a rock concert, ladies and gentlemen! Rob Thomas (who was channeling a little bit of Elvis in his on-stage banter, quite successfully I might add) is a ball to watch and listen to, with a highly talented band collaborating with him. They did 2 or 3 songs off the new album – including the insanely catchy How Far We’ve Come, which I’ve loved since the first time I heard it – confirming their knack for putting together good, accessible rock that doesn’t pander to teenyboppers, but the bulk of their hour-long set was a massive string of hits going back to 1996’s Yourself or Someone Like You CD (Push, 3 AM, and Long Day) and working through their impressive discography leading to the current release, Exile on Mainstream (which, even though they didn’t say it aloud, is a generous nod and wink to the Stones’ Exile on Main St.). I don’t follow bands religiously like some fans, so it’s possible that there’s a great deal of discussion about the influences and inspirations, but I have to say I didn’t care much about those things on Sunday night. I just saw a terrific show by an excellent, energetic rock band.
Grade: A+

Thanks for the great Chanukah present, honey!