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Girls of summer
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The headliner of the 26th annual KISS 108 concert Saturday night at the Tweeter Center was Jessica Simpson, and the Backstreet Boys stopped by for a one-song a cappella performance from their comeback album (which they said should be out by fall), but the pulse of teen pop these days is exemplified by Jessica’s younger sister Ashlee, who earlier in the day put on an energetic performance from a stage tucked way up in the lawn seats. Simpson the younger showed up in a Jett-black Jem and the Holograms wig and backed by an actual rock band. She doesn’t want to be the next Jessica; she’d probably settle for being the next Avril Lavigne. Then again, you could say almost the same thing about Liz Phair. Even now that we’re used to the idea of Phair as a Matrix-ized rocker, it was still a bit of a shock to see her on this sort of bill — an unapologetic pop showcase of abbreviated performances for the short-attention-span set: girls between the ages of eight and 18. Backstage, Liz said she’d heard Avril had dissed her, but she refused to return fire. "I adore her. She’s my kind of pop star: she’s pissy, she’s got a great little body but she doesn’t work it." Dressed in a black halter top and peasant skirt, with a Britney-style headset mike, Liz had in fact made an attempt at working it, running her hands through her hair, then pressing her skirt suggestively, while singing "Rock You" (operative line: "I’m beginning to think that young guys rule"). Avril has grown her hair to headbanging length, and her new tunes followed suit. But "Take Me Away" and "He Wasn’t" were greeted with blank stares. Avril has never been the most enthusiastic performer, and though her band were still getting the hang of her new album, the audience knew almost none of it. They perked up for her latest single, "Don’t Tell Me." And she seemed relieved to be in familiar territory as she ran through a few of her old hits: "I’m with You," "Sk8er Boi," and a "Complicated" that she burlesqued with improvised lyrics: "Lay back, whatcha smellin’ for?"; "And if only you could see/I have to pee!" In between Liz and Avril, however, the show was stolen by the ghost of girl-pop past. Baring a voice that has ripened with age, 51-year-old Cyndi Lauper danced like a dervish, dove into the crowd, banged on the stage with a hammer, dedicated a showstopping "True Colors" to "all the people gettin’ married this week," and jury-rigged an on-the-fly reggae remix of "Girls Just Want To Have Fun."
BY CARLY CARIOLI
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