Having the time of my life

I know I promised you a post on the end of the world, but don't worry. It's coming (both the post and the end of the world). But there are timely issues to address; namely, my attendance at Lily Allen's show at the 9:30 last night.

As the previous paragraph may have told you, I was at Lily Allen's show at the 9:30 last night. What? The previous paragraph didn't tell you that? I told it to pass on that message. Pfft. Anyway, there I was, and it was great. Well, it was great in that predictable pop way: the band basically stood still, and Lily's moves were limited to walking/dancing from one side of the stage to the other. She would occasionally pause to take a little electronic drum packed with sound effects and which seemed to have been put there only to keep her from getting too bored.

She was, predictably, kind of a brat. Her between-song chatter revealed her to be actually a very clever woman, but that part of her personality was ultimately out-dueled by her young stardom. You can probably predict it all: gratuitous swearing, smoking and drinking, including overly-conspicuous Jaeger shots and letting us know exactly when she was drunk. It was tolerable--even kind of cute--if only because a) I wasn't expecting any less, and b) because she seems bright enough to be embarrassed by it all about 10 years down the road.

The music was played pretty straight-forward for the most part, but was great at the very least because I'm not sure I'll ever get tired of hearing songs that sound great with synths and machines being transferred to live instruments. The three-piece horn section was fantastic in particular, adding blasts to songs I've loved for months and making me yell out exclamations at the hits.

The drummer was flat-out amazing, throwing out effortless, super-human-fast fills that dropped my jaw. He played pretty quietly most of the show, trying hard not to overpower the vocals, and this in and of itself was worthy of my respect. I've tried (and failed) to do this for about 4 years now. But at the end of "Everything's Just Wonderful" (listen), he couldn't contain himself anymore and busted out with some harder hits and fills that made the song the clear highlight of Lily's material. I stood in awe of his talent, his restraint and his perfectly-timed exhuberance.

The surprise of the night, though, was a moment when she scaled things back a bit and did a couple of acoustic covers. The second song I didn't recognize, but wasn't particularly impressed. The first song, though, was a cover of Keane's "Everybody's Changing" (listen) and it was absolutely gorgeous. It's a song that would be beautiful in almost any form, but I always found that Keane's version smothered it in too much gloss and sincerity. But with Lily's fragile vocals, warm room reverb and a sweet ska lilt, it goes from overdone to an absolute charmer; as much "Everybody's Talkin'" as "Everybody's Changing". It's been on ridiculous repeat all day.

The crowd? Also somewhat predictable. Thirtysomething music geeks and high school girls. It was a fantastic sight.