lead singer’s voice is some mix of Peter Murphy and David Bowie which sounds amazing but they’re not – they never particularly struck me in the 1990s and I figured out why once I saw them live some 20 years later – he’s just too happy – lead singer Richard Butler, looking either very old or wasted from years of drugs, wore a little scarf and danced with little glad-hands on the stage – this is not the sort of behavior I want from Peter-Murphy-voiced musicians – I’m being too hard on them though – lots of their songs are evocative of old times – I don’t know their body of work well enough to be critical (been together since the 1970s!) but they also don’t motivate me to find out more – there’s something one toned/bland about their music

I hear mention of this band a lot but didn’t know their material or even their sound – I can’t stand Interpol and they’re definitely in that vein but I could stand them – sleek, dark and shiny – I always imagined them as a bunch of polished young rock stars but they were 2 pleasingly unaverage looking guys – they ought to be ashamed for ripping off Joy Division but I guess that’s the way of the world

I’m a sucker for a good cover band, and ScatterShot was probably one of the better I’ve ever seen. We showed up in time for their second set of the night, complete with a “Sing with the Band” competition (for girls only) and credible takes on Def Lepard’s Pour Some Sugar on Me and Bon Jovi’s Livin’ On A Prayer. A little Billy Idol, Michael Jackson and Journey found its way into the set. They capped off an hour-long set with The Isley Brothers’ Shout. The crowd was more than happy to oblige.

Cyndi Lauper put together a blues band for her tour and stuck to all but a handful of new songs on the setlist. She was fiery onstage (even with the choice of toxic-red wig) and she was clearly enjoying herself.

The opener Just Your Fool was a good example of why Lauper is a fuckin’ pop star no matter what she’s singing. It was a barn burner. The best tracks from the new album, Memphis Blues, shone onstage when they allowed her to use her vocal range. Down so Low and Don’t Cry No More were the best examples, uplifting anthems as powerful as anything from her past catalog.

The show was divided into an hour long set of songs from her blues album, closing with the non-album track Wild Women Don’t Get the Blues (available on digital editions). The second set was a mere five songs deep, but she delivered them with a blues-touch and jammed out for a full forty minutes. Starting with the weepy ballad Who Let in the Rain and then leading into Change of Heart, Girls Just Want to Have Fun, and Time After Time, that was it for a run-through of the hits. The songs were fantastic, given a blues treatment and transformed into sing-a-long crowd-pleasing extended jams.

For one last song, she emerged on stage with just her guitarist for a tearful take on True Colors wrapped in a bit of John Lennon’s Power to the People.

Cyndi Lauper setlist
Just Your Fool
Shattered Dreams
Early in the Mornin’
Romance In The Dark
How Blue Can You Get?
Down Don’t Bother Me
Down So Low
Rollin’ and Tumblin’
Wild Woman Don’t Get The Blues
Break
Who Let The Rain In
Change Of Heart
Girls Just Wanna Have Fun
Time After Time
Don’t Cry No More
Encore
True Colors

David Rhodes, a recording and touring guitarist for Peter Gabriel for the last twenty-five years, played a thirty-minute solo set ahead of Cyndi Lauper at the House of Blues. The music was good, but the overall performance was a little awkward. It came across like Rhodes didn’t have any more of a clue what he was doing opening for Lauper than the crowd did.

On the first night of their 20 Years of Bloodletting Tour, Concrete Blonde was ferocious. Playing at the newly minted Royale Boston (a venue that’s been around forever despite a few name changes), the band, Johnette Napolitano, Jim Mankey and drummer Gabriel Ramirez Quezada, walked casually on stage and then launched into a mind-blowing ninety minute set.

It’s been six years since the band reunited on stage, and the key word this time around was: relaxed. The band seemed comfortable, even suffering opening night snafus like forgetting lyrics on the song True or having to convo to decide which key Run Run Run started in. Napolitano claimed, in jest, that they were old enough that it was hard to remember how to play the songs or to even see the setlist at her feet. The first five songs came off the album Bloodletting released originally in 1990, including a extended version of Bloodletting and the band’s only number one single, Joey.

Hit songs were well represented, covering almost every album including the 1989 hit God is a Bullet and 1992 single Someday? On Mexican Moon, Napolitano put down the bass and just belted the love song with Mankey on an acoustic guitar as accompaniment. For a brief moment, the tone of the performance softened, letting her incomparable vocals shine through and giving her a chance to work the stage with dance. Concrete Blonde even played two of their many divine covers, Everybody Knows (a Leonard Cohen track that was featured on the Pump Up the Volume soundtrack back in the day) and the Jimi Hendrix tune Little Wing.

Easily the best songs of the night where the hardest played, breathtaking renditions of I Don’t Need a Hero and When I Was a Fool that you felt in your brain and in your bones. This was Napolitano at her very best, reaching out through the songs to enthrall every person in the room. Ghost of a Texas Ladies Man and the main set closer Your Haunted Head seared into your brain. Then the band went back to the album that brought them here tonight and closed the show with a soulful encore of Tomorrow, Wendy.

Setlist
Bloodletting
Joey
I Don’t Need a Hero
Days and Days
Lullabye
Scene of a Perfect Crime
Someday?
Everybody Knows
When I Was A Fool
God is a Bullet
Run Run Run
Little Wing
Heal It Up
Mexican Moon
Happy Birthday
True
Ghost of a Texas Ladies Man
The Sky is a Poisonous Garden
Your Haunted Head
Encore
Tomorrow, Wendy

With a deft mix of theatrics and strumming, Jim Bianco warmed up the crowd on the opening night of Concrete Blonde’s 20 Years of Bloodletting tour. Bianco impressively coaxed a lot of sounds out of his guitar and his vocals, whether he was singing about hillbilly weddings or careers changes. In between each song, he added some backstory in a smoothly sarcastic, self-deprecating manner.

He opened with a barn-burner To Hell With the Devil and stuck mostly to tracks from his 2008 album, Sing. He introduced Painkiller as a ballad (term used loosely) and said of Tennessee Wedding, “I don’t perform this in Tennessee.” Each song told a pretty specific story, embellished by Bianco’s natural hammy stage presence. It was engrossing, and he made the best of his 40-minute set, even getting the lighting guy to help set the tone before I Got a Thing for You. The best of the night was the song Elevator Operator (it’s pretty much about what you think it’s about) and Sing.