Devendra / Joanna / Vetiver / Antony
Summer Jamboree 2004 hit the Bowery Ballroom, and it was a hoot. And hootenanny. But mostly
Devendra = Manson, shirt off, lots of auto-right nipple twisting. Sing/shouting. Joanna Newsom
(is she REALLY Gavin Newsom's niece?) in full elf-princess mode, like tiara and usual renaissance
flair and heels and so mannered and good and hetero-genizing. (Heterofying?) I mean she was hot.
Right, and Vetiver was good and sweet and sighful, but Antony, who I never saw perform before,
delighted me with a modern post-NYC club kid rendition of Elton John. A's voice is 10,000 times
superior of course, angelic, even--literally, no exaggeration--and when he sang N Young's "A Man
Needs a Maid" in front of the carney fair that was the Prospect Park Neil Young Tribute Concert,
he didn't have a piano to occupy his hands so they convulsed continually, unselfconsciously, and
he could have been mistaken for having mild palsy, but I did see tears on people's faces
afterward. Fireflies swarmed that night, too. But back at the Jamboree, everyone came onstage after
the individual acts, including a gang of roadies, like Will (as in "Will is My Friend," sort of a mascot
friend, a Bez friend), and performed a big family sing-along that made me over-excited and
SF-lossy, but not as excited as Devendra, who flung his microphone as hard as he could into
the crowd, narrowly missing human flesh, which it would have TKO'ed, and causing momentary
tenseness and "uh my gahd did he jus do THAT!?" etc. that was quickly healed with a group hug
onstage, though sound engineers and stewards continued to glare.
The caravan left town. I wept. Maxmen held me. New York farted its incessant fart.
Devendra = Manson, shirt off, lots of auto-right nipple twisting. Sing/shouting. Joanna Newsom
(is she REALLY Gavin Newsom's niece?) in full elf-princess mode, like tiara and usual renaissance
flair and heels and so mannered and good and hetero-genizing. (Heterofying?) I mean she was hot.
Right, and Vetiver was good and sweet and sighful, but Antony, who I never saw perform before,
delighted me with a modern post-NYC club kid rendition of Elton John. A's voice is 10,000 times
superior of course, angelic, even--literally, no exaggeration--and when he sang N Young's "A Man
Needs a Maid" in front of the carney fair that was the Prospect Park Neil Young Tribute Concert,
he didn't have a piano to occupy his hands so they convulsed continually, unselfconsciously, and
he could have been mistaken for having mild palsy, but I did see tears on people's faces
afterward. Fireflies swarmed that night, too. But back at the Jamboree, everyone came onstage after
the individual acts, including a gang of roadies, like Will (as in "Will is My Friend," sort of a mascot
friend, a Bez friend), and performed a big family sing-along that made me over-excited and
SF-lossy, but not as excited as Devendra, who flung his microphone as hard as he could into
the crowd, narrowly missing human flesh, which it would have TKO'ed, and causing momentary
tenseness and "uh my gahd did he jus do THAT!?" etc. that was quickly healed with a group hug
onstage, though sound engineers and stewards continued to glare.
The caravan left town. I wept. Maxmen held me. New York farted its incessant fart.