Sunshine, lollipops and...so on

For the first time in a while, I'm actually going to have theatre to write about this weekend! It's not that I didn't see anything during the summer. It's just the things I had seen I had either seen before ("The Drowsy Chaperone," "Rent"), they'd been around so long I saw no point in writing anything about them ("Legally Blonde," "Three Mo' Tenors") or they were just so plain awful I didn't have the heart to write anything ("Ido..." -- no, wait, I'll hold to that promise).

Before that, however, I do have throw out a quick few words of praise for the Public's outdoor concert series. Or, the first concert in that series, at least. Yup. Lesley Gore's still around. Out and proud, in fact. And you wouldn't believe the number of people who responded, when I told them I was seeing her: "Isn't that Al Gore's daughter? She sings? Is she going to talk about global warming?"

Philistines. Lesley Gore was Britney when Madonna was still in kindergarten. Probably one of the last people to still sing hit songs about class rings and such. And the bubble gum might have been sitting underneath a chair for a while, but it's still just as chewy and flavorful as ever. OK, that was a little gross.

Anyway, the Public helped Gore put out her first album in decades a few years ago. You can still hear traces of the old Lesley's voice, but it's really involved into something remarkable to hear: much deeper, rather husky but still able to sustain quite well. Her newer stuff is smoky jazz that juxtaposed remarkably well with her peppy, innocuous hits of the 60s, which she didn't shy away from at all. She even sang "Judy's Turn To Cry," the sequel to "It's My Party" and a song she said she didn't even care for when she first released it.

Also fun was Jill Sobule. Yeah, another name that usually got me blank stares. Remember "I Kissed A Girl"? "Supermodel" from "Clueless"? Yeah, her. Well, aside from those -- and she didn't even perform the latter, while Gore joined her on the former -- she has a repertoire of some really lovely songs with some brilliant lyrics, particularly "Mexican Wrestler."

Anyway, it gave me some downloading ideas. Speaking of which, I've already lost two more songs from the theme list: Rufus Wainwright's "Crumb by Crumb" and the Willie Nelson/Kimmie Rhodes duet "Love Me Like A Song." Pity. I liked those.