The most unexpected part of my day so far is how quickly I tired of Duffy and her Melanie-Griffith-via-Wales routine.
She’s a proficient singer, but her pinched, nasally tone got very irritating, very quickly.
She’s also a bit of a sassy minx, baby-stepping around the stage in heels and a short red sundress, her blond mane swept into a glamorous ponytail with a red ribbon.
Songs such as “Breaking My Own Heart” and “I’m Leaving You for the Last Time,” shimmered with a lush, layered sound produced by her six-piece band, and her music often evokes the best of ‘60s-era girl groups.
But, compared to the similarly styled Amy Winehouse, Duffy comes across as the vapid cheerleader sister to Winehouse’s angst-ridden soul, even when she’s swinging through the sultry “Mercy.”
Following Duffy was The Swell Season, whom I wanted to catch despite seeing them a few months ago at Toad’s Place.
Armed only with their traditional piano and acoustic guitar, the charmingly low-key duo of Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová had the unenviable task of competing with the pulsing bass from the dance tent, about 300 feet away.
But Hansard grabbed the attention of the few thousand fans clamoring near the stage, many of them taking cell phone photos and whispering about “those people from that ‘Once’ movie,” with his bracing opener, “Say it to Me Now.”
Irglová bopped onstage and smiled adoringly at Hansard before sliding behind her piano for “Lies.” The duo’s harmonizing was heartbreakingly beautiful, and Hansard, who earlier snapped at a camera man hovering around Irglová to “[blank] off a bit,” turned softer when introducing their most known song.
Using the familiar metaphor of songs being like children to the songwriter, Hansard said with a smile, “…and this one we sent off and said, go and make your parents a lot of money,” before dipping into the familiar piano plinking of “Falling Slowly.”
Hansard asked the crowd to sing the chorus with him, and watching a motley assembly of shirtless dudes, longhairs with trucker caps and girls in tank tops singing, “Take this sinking boat and point it home, we’ve still got time,” was, actually, quite moving.
Meanwhile, at the south end, Lupe Fiasco skittered through “Dumb it Down,” and took the award for the first act to feel the need for stage lights at 2:30 in the afternoon. In the bright sun.
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