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Our evening begins with Peter Moore, solo with keyboard and kick drum, presenting his one-man show tentatively entitled "The Love Cycle." It is a song cycle with connecting segments of "dialogue," with Peter doing all the characters in distinct voices. He follows the somewhat nebbishy musician Charlie as (prodded by his crusty friend Boris) he becomes involved with Jeanine. The relationship arc is sketched, from early dates (here we get the hilarious "I'm Droppin' Trou," which oozes campy/smarmy R&B machismo), through eventual disillusion (an achingly lovely piece that may be called "Where Has the Romance Gone," which I really can't wait to hear recorded), to the shocking denouement. (Jeanine and Boris?!?) It all ends with him doing his laundry, getting ready to go out dancing, and contemplating an alternative lifestyle, with a gloriously painful pun on "Cling Free." There are subtleties (the kick drum becomes a dryer for the laundry scene; a line from an early song is recycled as dialogue near the end) that just blow my mind with how intensely crafted the whole thing is, but its greatest strength is Peter's chameleon nature, whether he's carrying on a conversation between Charlie and Jeanine or referencing half a dozen different musical styles in half an hour of songs.
The Everyday Visuals are a good-looking bunch of guys. Unfortunately, they start right off with a drum machine, which I hate, and the lead singer has a serious case of Emo Voice. Neither of these things is objectively bad, but they drive me up the fucking wall. So they'd have to be pretty special to overcome that, and they're not. Their third song has the singer sitting down at the keyboard, lacks the drum machine, and has pretty, Beatlesque harmony backing vocals. I'm mollified, and if they can avoid turning the drum machine back on, I'll give them another chance. They turn the drum machine back on, for their slow, turgid, more-Coldplay-than-Coldplay number, and I'm out of there. We go next door and have dinner.
We come back for The Rudds, though, who are headlining. They are a six-piece tonight, with Andrea Gillis singing backup and a keyboard player I've never seen before, as well as a fill-in drummer. So many changes—and five people singing!—but it's still a Rudds show. I've said it before, and I'll probably say it again: the purpose of The Rudds is to remove the constraints of good taste that might otherwise prevent John Powhida's vocals and Brett Rosenberg's guitar leads from reaching the hyperbolic heights that they achieve here. I actually have trouble hearing Brett tonight, as I'm way at the other end of a very crowded stage, but J.Po is on fire. He takes the stage in leather pants and an Annie T-shirt, and I think that pretty much sums him up. His soaring vocal trills are spot-on and unbelievable, and his sensibility is raunchy and hilarious, whether in the lyrics or in the surreal asides that he launches between and even within songs. "Now, those of you who know me know that I was 800 lbs. five months ago. [No, he wasn't.] But I said to myself, 'Girlfriend, you gotta get your ass on the road! I'm tired of sucking cocks for frappuccino.'" This in place of the last verse of a song. If there's anything wrong with this set at all, it's that Andrea Gillis never really gets to cut loose and strut her considerable stuff; she's wasted as a backup singer. But J.Po's on the stage, and it's his show.
