I went to see Chrisette Michele at the Independent last night with my fab friend, Shayne, aka Shiny.
The most important thing to report is that we got dinner first at Memphis Minnie’s. I ate a pound of shredded pork, with North Carolina vinegar sauce, which is truly reminiscent of BBQ from North Carolina. There was also some macaroni and cheese, spicy french fries, corn bread, and wings. Yeah. Oh my. And a pitcher of beer. All of this into a gullet that is obsessively semi-satiated with high fiber, low calorie foods. Or semi-foods. Except that when my Neurotic Obsessive Psychotic must-control-my-food switch is off, it is off and that is spelled B-A-D. But getting over it, moving on, etc.
And then we went to a concert. The scene at this show was a twenty, thirty-something, cool, hip black crowd. Shayne commented that it was very Oakland-esque, which is true. I’m not sure where you’d find this scene in SF. Except we found it. Lots of shiny lip gloss and tautly clad black lady rump. Many asses were remarkable. So I remarked on them.
Some guy named Matthew Santos opened and he was pretty lame. He sounded like John Mayer for about a second, before he’s start to go all shouty. Nothing memorable here.
Chrisette Michele is a new singer/songwriter R & B lady. I had heard two of her songs and liked them: Good Girl and Best of Me, so I was hopeful and excited about this show. But, sigh, it was rather disappointing. It took about 45 minutes for Chrisette to turn up on stage after the opening guy was done, resulting in far too much waiting and standing about (whilst over full of 0 grams of fiber and about 278 grams of protein and fat.) But when she turned up, she looked like Eva the Diva from America’s Next Top Model, so that was amusing for us for a minute. But the sound wasn’t great, like her mic was turned on too loud and her words weren’t quite intelligible. She sang a few too many songs that sounded like the morning commute on a smooth jazz station. And by a few too many, I think maybe I mean two. Then she sang Best of Me, which was nice to hear, but like I said, the sound wasn’t great and her voice didn’t seem to be as sultry as I remembered. She sounded a bit like an Atlantic City lounge singer who’d gone and turned 42 and was still trying to woo the elderly. Which she did do, actually, in the form of a song made up on the spot for audience member Jondola and then Tito. I suspect that they were not elderly, though. This part was rather amusing and cute, but kinda cheez. And not a triple cream brie kinda cheese.
We left after that, so probably only about half way through the whole show. Which means that the upshot was that we were back home early enough that I managed to drag my own rump into the gym this morning.
margaret edith 