Music Review: Pat Benatar at the Greek

Aug 22, 2016 | Music

Stepping on stage with the knowing confidence she has exuded throughout her career, Pat Benatar took to the Greek Theatre with ease. She opened with her hit song, “All Fired Up”. This anthem is the ideal initiation to her summer performance of rock, ballads and blues. The tune captures the essence of Benatar’s best work.

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Husband Neil Giraldo’s guitar roared before his wife let loose her vocal power in expressing the buoyantly, defiantly crying optimism which distinguishes this singer and her operatic rock band. Whether in the strong but tender “We Belong”, dramatic “Love is a Battlefield” or The Legend of Billie Jean‘s affirmation “Invincible”, each performed with precision last night at the Greek in her hometown Los Angeles, Benatar’s siren-like bellowing has aged with not a trace of cynicism. Each note, guitar solo and drumbeat fell neatly into each song with minor flaws, bringing her hard but positive catalog to life in the hills of Griffith Park.

Telling tales with humor, profanity and a grasp of what makes a good story, Giraldo and Benatar delivered with stage presence and musicianship every time. This isn’t a greatest hits collection, so they indulged in a selective set list after a nostalgic setup video. With “Hell is for Children” as an emotionally stirring transition point, they gave the enthused audience “Heartbreaker”, “We Live for Love” and “Hit Me With Your Best Shot” as well as a powerful version of “Promises in the Dark”, “Painted Desert” and a tribute to the late Prince with an acoustic rendition of his “When Doves Cry”. The energy was sustained, though Benatar seemed ready to call it a night when she did, too. Both artists, who were co-billed as Pat Benatar & Neil Giraldo with Melissa Etheridge, have a naturally seasoned audience rapport.

That they acknowledge the warped, divisive times fits the tour’s love theme, with Benatar introducing the rollicking and underrated “Let’s Stay Together” off 1988’s brilliant and underrated Wide Awake in Dreamland with a statement dismissing political differences while pleading for unity. A hint of resignation and the sense that answers to deep, serious problems aren’t coming doesn’t mar the band’s underlying, almost prayerful idealism. It is tinged with the rage and anger at injustice that made Pat Benatar an early New Wave sensation in the late 1970s. No one can best this artist and duo for melodic rock that drives its theme that peace and love must be won, fought for and earned. The wink and the shrug with which Pat Benatar and her Neil Giraldo perform are optional.

These two ought to write and record more new music. Their rock concert is a rare and entertaining blend of the light and the serious.

Music Review: Melissa Etheridge at the Greek

Aug 22, 2016 | Music

Belting out her torchy 1990s hits and threading a story connecting her to hometown Los Angeles and its intimate Greek Theatre, where she preceded Pat Benatar and Neil Giraldo, Melissa Etheridge displayed ability and an appreciation for the blues.

Teasing with a rousing cover tune of “Born Under a Bad Sign” from her forthcoming blues cover album of Stax Records songs, the best song performance of the night, singer-songwriter Etheridge impressed on a variety of skills. The raspy voice is deeper yet still strong and, without pandering to her gay female audience base, the outspoken political activism remains. Both are older and, yes, wiser and more restrained. This is the savvy artist who played on Mike Huckabee’s Fox News program, after all, and she says she still lives in the San Fernando Valley (and has an apartment in Manhattan with a view of the Freedom Tower), so she’s hardly the embodiment of left-wing intellectuals. As in the Brave and Crazy beginning of her career, Melissa Etheridge is an independent gay singer on her own.

While nodding to the times she hung out in Long Beach, a lesbian mecca like Minneapolis, Etheridge let her introspective songs of longing for sex, love and happiness—”Bring Me Some Water”, “If I Wanted To”, “I Want to Come Over”, “Angels Would Fall”, “I’m the Only One”, “Come to My Window”—speak for themselves. She tapped the early, granola-folk phase with her plaintive “No Souvenirs” and mastered every guitar she played throughout the night. But she also spoke of her struggling years in LA in chapters of coming to the Greek to see yoga-minded Sting, for whom she would open, and acts with gay male followings such as Liza Minnelli, who had invited the young Etheridge to attend her show, and Culture Club. She referred to the “glass ceiling” and hinted support for Hillary Clinton but she also derided people breaking off into “little groups” and called for Americans to come together.

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I’ve always liked Melissa Etheridge—I think Never Enough is a thoughtful album—for the same reasons I like Bob Seger; she’s a musical storyteller. I’ve bought her albums and I would have liked to have seen and heard her perform “Ain’t it Heavy”, “2001” “Christmas in America” and “The Letting Go”. Etheridge’s new song, “Pulse”, about the Orlando massacre of gay men by a Moslem terrorist is not her best. But it’s impossible to deny the cancer survivor’s talent and dedication to writing, playing guitar and singing about life here on earth. And, now, thanks to a terrific show last night at the Greek, I look forward to hearing her new Memphis-recorded blues album, too.