Concerts: June 2007 Archives

Midway through his set at the Troubadour on Tuesday night, Jesse Malin asked the audience to sit. On the floor. Nice pants be damned. Then he jumped from the stage and sat down with them. While singing "Solitaire", a song about loneliness, Malin helped transform the audience into the exact opposite - one unit in a summer-camp sing-along.

While singing about being alone, Malin surrounded himself with his new friends - a perfect contradiction for the singer on a night full of them. During an intense and inspiring 90-minute set, Malin would go from rock to folk to punk to rock again.

In between songs, he'd rail on the Internet and how it's killing record stores and stifling the ability to find new music, then thank everyone for being his MySpace friends.

He'd tell humorous, quirky stories about being mistaken for a male prostitute on the streets of Los Angeles, then switch gears to a serious rants about how American Idol, the iPod and Jack FM are ruining musical creativity.

And in between was fantastic music, backed by a band that made the live music more vibrant than Malin's albums, from a singer-songwriter who's somehow managed to stay under the mainstream musical radar. Tuesday was no different - this time overshadowed by The Police, playing their Reunion Tour show at Staples Center the same night. One big difference - Malin's tickets only cost 12 bucks. A bargain.

(note: crappy photos from my Treo phone, which clearly does not have a very good camera)