I wish I could write reviews of live shows like this.....

We'd like to think that's just because singer Leila Moss was utterly mesmerizing. From her gold sequined dress to her spidery, double-jointed rock postures to singing the fuck out of every song, Moss slunk and fist-pumped and pounded her chest—commanding the stage like firecrackers wrapped in dynamite wrapped in, like, bombs or something. Her energy was contagious. Sort of. Someone handed her a cell phone at one point, and asked her to read a message: "Sunday night is no excuse for not dancing," she obliged, to tepid applause. Talk about being set up. No, Nashville was not in a dancing mood, even if everyone was pretty into it (which they seemed to be, despite the standing-stillness).
Photo: Tanya Wright
Altered Boys Altered Statesman
Photo: Steve Cross
I Found It! The Duke Spirit
When the band started "The Step and the Walk" it was with a different intro from the album version, but once they hit the verse, a ripple of recognition travelled through the crowd, inspiring at least one person to sing along. Yes! The band soldiered on through a set heavy with tunes off Neptune, playing tight and big. After they finished their last song and left the stage, someone tried to slow-clap the crowd into demanding an encore, but everyone seemed a bit too sleepy for that.
We ran into Moss as she came back out to help pack up the band's gear. "Great show," we said, meaning it more than usual. She shrugged her shoulders and smiled sheepishly. "Eh," she managed. I guess we couldn't blame her for feeling a bit bummed, what with the rain, the cold, the Sunday-ness, the endless touring and playing-to-a-half-empty-room blahs.
Panty time"Nashville, stop throwing your panties at me," sings Dawn Oberg on the bonus track to her first full-length solo CD, "it's embarrassing after a while." Perhaps best known for the booze-soaked laments of her Honky-Tonk Happy Hour, the self-described "middle-aged library worker" emerges on her album Horticulture Wars as a fierce, dry wit with a smoky middle range and a world-weariness as becoming as a plume of smoke from Marlene Dietrich's cigarette holder. Thanks to co-producer Robin Eaton and top-flight backing from Jim Hoke, Brad Jones, Joe Pisapia, Fleming McWilliams and pedal-steel great Al Perkins, among others, Oberg's piano-centered cabaret pop has a lush, intimate sound that avoids turning facile and loungy. She belongs in the company of Aimee Mann and Amy Rigby, grown-up women who give off the kind of knowledge that makes their pop-tart competition sound like mewling Brownies. (And check out the cool Kelly Williams painting on the cover.) Oberg plays her CD release show 7 p.m. Dec. 5 at Club Roar, 710 Fessey Park Road—and if you insist on throwing panties, she sings, "at least could it be a clean pair?"
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