-Entertainment
Toni Childs' rapport with crowd
transcends auditorium formality
By Rick Heyman
Emerald Contributor
The Silva Concert Hall at tin1
Unit ("enter presents a tough
challenge for an energetic sing
er like Toni Childs The hall is
so beautiful that it makes rock
'n' roll concertgoers behave as
if they're at a classical perfor
mance. The polite, sit-in-vour
scat-and-clap-at-the-end-of-a
song norms run counter to the
kind of bonfire a singer like
Childs is trying to ignite
If you're Toni Childs, you
play a few songs, turn up the
house lights, and play Simon
Says with the audience. This
makes them look so silly that
dancing becomes a very unself
conscious act by comparison.
In one simple stroke on Mon
day night. Childs changed a
stuffy concert hall into a small
club, encouraging people to
come up front and dance.
It didn't hurt that on the next
song, the incendiary "Stop
Your Fussin'," she and her
band knocked the intensity lev
el up a few notches and never
looked back.
(.hiIlls songs <ire intensely
personal, and she did a magnif
icent job connecting with the
audience on a deep emotional
level. Her sometimes funny and
always heartfelt between-song
chats with the audience were
very warm and human. Al
though difficult to do in a ven
ue the size of Silva Concert
Hall. Childs never played the
"star" or "performer"; her al
lium is aptly titled Union, and
Childs was able to join with the
audience in a rare musical com
munion.
Childs’ stunning gift as a
singer is not her husky voice,
although it is an instrument to
marvel at. Childs emotes so
fully that it seems that every
sinew, every nerve in her body
is struggling to express the feel
ings locked inside the music.
Before her last encore. Childs
told the audience "Singing is a
way for me to express all the
things I'd keep locked inside. If
I didn't get to do this, I
wouldn't be here today — I
would have checked out a long
time ago.”
The catharsis shared between
Childs and her audience on
Monday was exhilarating and
r
wide [-ringing >1 music ground
ed in <t global beat, moments of
exuberance and abandon, mo
ments of political and so< ial
fervor, and moments of des
peration and longing
The only tru k for Toni
Childs will be maintaining the
intimacy and union, so crui ial
for her and her music, when .1
huge following befalls her And
as her performance at the Hull
amply demonstrated, this is
clearly her destiny
Matthew Sweet opened the
show with a loose, rocking set
taken mostly from his recent.
sound leans more to roots rm k
than tlif anai hromstu I I. ()
ish keyboards that he's usrd to
drstroy a numlicr of prnjet ts
hf 's produced
/•'ti// A/cxiri /-'ever iloi'sn't dif
fer much from a standard
Heart breakers record The two
primary differenc:es are the
thickly layered guitars, which
(ill mm h of the musical spat e
usually no upied by Benmont
Tench's keylioards. and the
freedom to explore
Petty uses this freedom in
several ways lie recorded a
version of the Byrds' "Teel a
If you ’re Toni Childs, you play a few
songs, turn up the house lights, and play
Simon Says with the audience.
critically acclaimed album
H.irth. Sweet's voice has be
come fuller and more mature
since the recording of the re
cord, which only served to
make his catchy and quirky
songs even more irresistible
Full Moon Fever — Tom Pol
ly
Tom Petty fronts one of the
best bands in the universe
Why in the world would he
possibly want to make .1 solo
record?
The answer seems to be that
it would be fun It's a time to
play around without the nor
mal expectations whii h accom
pany an artist of his stature
The Traveling Wilburys. the
Petty-Dylan-Orbison-I larrison
Lynne supersession, didn't
cave in under the collective
weight of its members' reputa
tions because they didn't take
themselves seriously.
The same art-for-fun's-sake
atmosphere of the Wilburys
pervades Full Moon /-'ever.
K.L.O.’s |eff Lynne co-pro
duced the album and. as with
his co-production on the
Wilburys record, the LP's
Whole I„nt Better" that is so
true to the original (Betty's
voice has always sounder! un
cannily like Roger Md'.uinn's)
that on <1 Heartbreaker allium
he would tie at 1 used of rts ord
mg filler With the expectations
abandoned it's a hell of a lot of
fun to hear his tribute
Full Moon /'ever was also a
i hence for Petty to .nr his wit k
ed sense of humor Take the
first few lines of "Yer So Had"
“My sister got hit kv married a
yuppie Took hint for .ill he was
worth Now she’s a swinger, in
love with a singer I can t de
cide whit h is worse
Tor all this talk ol lowered
expectations, vnu might he stir
prised to learn that the song
writing is uniformly excellent,
from the rot king beauty of
"Tree Tailin' " through to the
rocking stomp of "Zombie
Zoo." Full Moon / ever is first
rate Hetty a bit looser, a bit
funnier, and a hit more guitar
crazy. The best part may be that
the Heartbreakers art1 a band
who thrive on 1 hallenge Not
only is Full Moon /-'ever an al
bum to blare all summer, hut I
Ih-I the next album with the
Heartbreakers will raise the
stakes even higher
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