 "Photo: Alan Lampart")
It had been more than four years since Mandy Moore last released a musical album, and her fans were missing her like they miss candy. But when her latest effort, Wild Hope, dropped earlier this year, consumers gobbled it up like the sweetest sugary confection ever concocted. A crowd of what had to be well over 150 people filled nearly half the floor space at La Zona Rosa Friday night to witness a stop on the singer-turned-actress' 2007 tour in support of her latest album.
It was a rainy night, and during opener Rachel Yamagata's set the downpour was so heavy that it nearly overpowered the singer's piano and smoky vocals. Yamagata made do, though, and went on to finish her time and eventually admit to kissing a girl the night before.
"I had too much Jack in me," Yamagata said. "I swear, when I leave these things I just want to become a lesbian."
Yamagata left the room on that note. But lesbian or not, it was time for the true pop princess to make her presence known.
Not Britney, not Christina, but Mandy.
The roar from the crowd was deafening as Moore and the scrappy group of musicians serving as her band took the stage. Clad in a black dress resembling a maid's outfit, black leggings, a yellow sweater and Louis Vuitton high heels (because "a girl's gotta treat herself while on the road," in Moore's words) and drinking a large mug of green tea, Moore looked like quite the rock star. However, unlike Britney and Christina, Moore was in possession of all her original hair, and her breasts were safely tucked away in her clothes.
The singer opened with "Slummin' in Paradise," a tune from Wild Hope, and played pretty much everything from the new record, as well as some older tunes.
One such song was "Moonshadow" from 2003's Coverage. The song's title, which references God-knows-what, sounds like a musical version of a fairy tale, and most people in attendance fully expected Moore to break out a plastic wand and throw fairy dust and glitter at the audience.
Moore was clearly trying to prove that she's not a typical pop artist, but instead a prog-popper. This was further evidenced by the song that followed "Moonshadow," a tune so devoid of catchiness, so lacking a hook that there was no hint of normal musical convention anywhere. It was totally avant-garde.
One thing is for certain, though: Moore knows how to work a crowd. During her songs, she kept the energy high and the audience off-balance by alternating from innocent, prenatal giggling to expressions of utter sorrow and hopelessness to looks of complete sexual arousal. Biting her lip, hands clutching the fabric of her dress, eyes rolled into the back of her head, it was obvious she was once more thinking about the fact that she achieved every 15-year-old girl's dream of dating "Scrubs" star Zach Braff.
Above all else, Moore said that writing music and touring is something she's always wanted to do, because she wants to be a rock star. She doesn't need to try, though. She is a rock star.
At one point during her set she took a sip of Corona and was on the edge of being drunk all night. She even dropped an f-bomb at one point, too, referencing Yamagata's "f-ing awesome" set. The word rolled off her tongue like a true pro, proving that if she wanted to, she could have been a sailor as well.
After one hour of vicious rocking out from the crowd (average ages: females 22, males 30), Moore unleashed the grand finale. Never one to forget her roots, she finished the evening with a stunning rendition of her 1999 pop hit "Candy." Moore made sure that the audience knew she's a mature songwriter now by turning this live version into a straight-up rocker. And seriously, what exudes maturity more than taking your most juvenile song and changing the instrumentation from Kidz Bop-style synthesizers and pseudo hip-hop dance rhythms to heavily distorted guitars and driving bass drum kicks? Also, in keeping with the mature rock star theme, Moore refused to sing the section of the song that reads "You know who you are/ Your love's as sweet as candy/ I'll be forever yours/ Love always, Mandy." The crowd forgave her, though, and she ended the song and thanked the crowd for a wonderful show.
That was it. She didn't come back for an encore, but that's all right, because the crowd probably wouldn't have been able to handle it. It was 63 minutes of pure mayhem, and no artist plays for that long at concerts anymore, so the lack of an encore was perfectly forgivable. As the crowd filed out, some drunk, all happy, and that one guy still frazzled over Yamagata's admission of incidental lesbianism, there was a feeling that something special had just taken place. Don't be surprised if this concert ends up overtaking the ballsy Woodstock set from Jimi Hendrix in terms of popularity. Love Always, Mandy.
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