The Gossip's show at Webster Hall on April 15 was a rally in disguise, a battle cry to be strong in opposition in society if it opposes you, if you are a minority, if you are a woman, or fat, or gay, that there are a lot of sad, mean, people in the world tryin' to get you down, but you are important. I'm a little too old to think of the world as quite that divided, but I got the point, and it was pretty cool.It wasn't hard to get the point though when it came from the mouth of Beth Ditto, the famously large and in charge leader of The Gossip. Beth is outspoken about everything, and what I appreciate about her is that while her wildly "I Love You and Fuck You" personality might have started as a defense mechanism, it certainly seems like the real thing now.
While I think Christina Aguilera's claim that "you're beautiful, no matter what they say..." is all very well, it is a little hard to swallow coming from a thin Mickey Mouse Club beauty. Now, when Beth Ditto says this (in not so many words, maybe a little garbled, and maybe slurring a little from being drunk), moving around with her fat rolls giggling, it sinks a lot deeper.
Beth's voice is a full throated meshing of Stevie Nicks and Janis Joplin, lacking the tender beauty capable in either voice, but capturing the primal quality that makes both voices vital. She is capable of a full roar, and turning just about any word, any line, any sound into this roar, and she also profits from a pounding backing band. I am not sure the last time I heard someone sing so well with a band behind them and so poorly without one - Beth felt compelled to sing at almost all times. She sang several covers which revealed I'm not sure what - Pearl Jam's "Jeremy" came out of nowhere, but of course fit in the overall theme of acceptance, and in a moment of odd counterirony, Beth encouraged a sing-along of the theme from Friends.
At the end of the show, Beth lept off stage (actually I have no idea who she got down; I doubt she leaps) and walked through the crowd singing, "You are important," and then "We are important" over and over again, without going into exactly how or why or when, but just repeating a mantra of positivity to everyone around her (there was also some political tie-in somehow, but it was unfocused and confused).
And looking around, there were a lot of women and a lot of queers in the audience, which is understandable (the evening was hosted by Murray Hill, as if to cement the Gay Deal), and I think awesome. Many of Beth's non-sung monologues were drunken ramblings about women in rock and about standing up to people who say no. Much of it was vague and generalized, and you would need to be pretty aware of the music scene to fully appreciate what she was attempting to verbalize. But it roughly translated as, "when I was growing up, there was like one ONE woman rocker on the cover of Rolling Stone, now what kind of image is that sending to young girls? And pitchfork says really incredibly mean things about me, and I can't even figure out why, but whatever they are nasty cruel people and I don't need to listen to them, and you don't either."
It reminded me of the rock 'n' roll camp for girls, which was founded to give girls self-esteem and confidence by finding their inner...well, I suppose once I think about it, their inner Beth Ditto.
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