So she was awesome. We hate to tell you this. Especially if we already invited you to this show then canceled and took someone else. (That would suck! You shouldn't talk to us again til we buy you a lobster pasta lunch at Esca if that's the case!)
We've seen Lily Allen twice before. Once in person, at Hiro Ballroom in the fall, where Aaron LaCrate and Mark Ronson opened for her, and she played a short set half-nervous half-ironic and not at all that memorable to a fully warmed-up crowd. We saw her on TV, on SNL last week and she was even more awful. She was nearly inaudible and she didn't seem like she was even trying. Maybe that's the pressure of only getting to do one song on live TV late at night and it's all so much. We remember seeing Kelis on SNL when Milkshake came out and she was terrible but she's amazing live in general. But this was Strike Two against Lily Allen.
Last night should have been Strike Three. For one, it's Webster Hall. A big venue did nothing for her at Hiro and that crowd was of age. This was a teenybopper bridge and tunnel TRL crowd. And the opener was just Aaron LaCrate who with nothing but flashing lights and an iBook did not do much to impress. Then the Lacoste clad seven member band took the stage and things could not have been more different, providing the greatest artistic turnaround since The Strokes sobered up and rocked Hammerstein Ballroom one year ago.
She sang every song but her cover of Oh My God by the Kaiser Chiefs. The whole album, the B-sides, the covers of the Kooks (Naive,) Keane (Everybody's Changing,)and the Specials (Blank Expression.) She was alive. She was energized and dancing and humble and funny and engaging and just on. Halfway through she introduced her acoustic medley of covers, saying how there wasn't enough material on one album to fill a whole show. She did a new arrangement of Absolutely Nothing, our favorite song. She gave a back story for Everything's Just Wonderful (railing against fashion editors,) for Not Big (against small cocks,) and stopped the show to explain why she was pausing and laughing through more serious songs was due to her gas caused by a shepherd's pie from Tea & Sympathy which she had sent up to her hotel and which had upset her stomach. By the encore she was drinking Jaegermeister and smoking on stage and generally having a good time in part we have to believe because she knew the crowd was as well.
Again, the only song not performed:
Lily Allen - BBC1 LiveLounge Kaiser Chiefs Cover - Oh My God.mp3
