It’s been an auspicious year and a half for Baltimore, Maryland’s Future Islands. Anchored by a big hit single, and a viral-mega-hit performance on David Letterman, the band has emerged as an unlikely but deserving new champion of the indie scene. In what the band described themselves as their biggest show to date, they opened on this night for the inimitable Grace Jones. Just a few short years back in 2009, Jones burned the house down along with of Montreal at this same venue. Tonight’s show proved to be just as fantastic, filled with all the requisite glitz and glamour one might expect from Jones.
Future Islands were up first though, and worked as hard as possible to win over a crowd anxious for a dose of Jones’ unique brand of music. Let’s not fool ourselves though, the band’s lead singer Samuel T. Herring worked the hardest by a mile. For those unfamiliar, Herring is something of rip-cord top but even more unpredictable. He shifts from menacing stares with serene vocals to gyrating overtly sexual twists and then into sudden death metal growls. It didn’t always work at this show, but every few songs, he was able to get the crowd excited and cheering along. Early numbers such as “Back in the Tall Grass” and “A Dream of You and Me” were nice, mid tempo, early additions to the set, but it wasn’t until Herring’s more exaggerated histrionics on “Long Flight” that the crowd truly became enraptured. “Balance” he dedicated to troubled young people claiming, “Life evens out.” He charmingly dedicated “A Song for Our Grandfathers” to several of the band members’ descendents from North Carolina. Naturally, “Seasons” (Waiting On You)” prompted the crowd’s biggest reaction, and they remained engaged until the finale. “Tin Man” and “Spirit” (which Herring explained was about “living life by your own rules”) closed out the set and the band earned a standing ovation.
Grace Jones was a whole other ball of wax. Backed by a six-person crack band and two back-up singers, Jones is a glorious vision of what an empowered, commanding female in a headlining show can be. She opened the show atop a slightly elevated catwalk stage center, half nude (topless) adorned head-to-toe in body paint and wearing some bizarre, golden skeleton mask. She opened on the quirky but fun Iggy Pop cover “Nightclubbing.” “This Is” followed with Jones cooing in a half-reggae pitter-patter, singing “This is a voice / these are the hands / this is technology / mixed with a band.” Heading further to a full-on reggae sound was a smoothed-out take on “Walking in the Rain,” with it’s intriguing kiss-off “Come in all you jesters / enter all you fools / sit down no-no / vulgar ghouls.”
In her many offstage costume changes, Jones would frequently continue the melodic refrain of the song she just finished, or rant a little introducing the theme of the next number. Before the next song, “I’ve Seen that Face Before (Libertango)” she mused at how grateful she was that Roman (Polanski) included the song in his film (Frantic, 1988), yet had not seen him in years. That number alone demonstrated much of Jones’ killer stage presence and demeanor. Many speak about musical divas with glowing praise, often referring to them as such because of a brash level of confidence. Not so with Grace Jones. Jones exudes confidence without seeming full of herself. This is all about joy. Fearlessness and joy.
Jones dropped in a new song (likely called “Shenanigans”), quipping that she just had not yet got around to releasing it. She followed that up with her famous covers of the Pretenders’ “Private Life” and Edith Piaf’s “La vie en rose,” ending the latter with a repeated refrain of “je t’aime,” cementing the set’s theme of falling in and out of love. “Nipple to the Bottle” and “Williams’ Blood” rounded out the set, but it was her cover of Roxy Music’s “Love is the Drug” which put the crowd in the palm of her hand. Her insistence that the crowd join her on the outro’s “Ohh / ohhh,” kept that motif going a solid five minutes. The show ended strong with “Pull up to the Bumper” and “Slave to the Rhythm,” the former with Jones insisting the crowd chant “Pull up to my bumper” along with her and the latter was a funked-out dance-off that let things boil down slowly rather than explosively. It might have been a bit too style conscious for some, but Jones has it in all the ways that matter. She performs joyously and holds nothing back. It’s too rare that a woman commands the stage with such warmth and power, without becoming a vile stereotype of over sexualized drivel or bratty nonsense.
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