Review: Estelle

The day after Madonna unleashed her epic halftime spectacle on the Super Bowl audience, another Grammy-award winner came to Kansas City. Estelle, best-known for "American Boy," her collaboration with Kanye West, headlined a show Monday night at the Riot Room, a spartan and stalwart Westport venue not renowned for its glitz and glamor.

That didn't bother Estelle, who put on a lively set that lasted more than 90 minutes and comprised more than 20 songs. Three years ago, she headlined a show at the tony VooDoo Lounge in Harrah's casino, a sleek room that can hold more than 1,200 fans. About 150 showed up, and the emptiness around them seemed to put a damper on her mood that night. Monday night, about 150 people showed up again but they filled the room and aroused a contagious, festive mood that spread to the stage and everyone on it.

Estelle is about to release "All of Me," her third full-length album, and she shared some of it with her audience Monday night, including "Freak," a dirty disco bomb that sounded like a Ke$ha song all cleaned up.

She opened with "Pretty Please," from her "Shine" album, then a cover of "You Can't Hurry Love" that prompted the first of many sing-along The Riot Room is an intimate venue, provided you've staked out a spot on the main floor in front of the stage. This evening,the crowd spilled off the flor, down the stairs and into the bar area, which is several steps lower than the stage and provides no view of the performers.

I squeezed onto the main floor for a couple of songs to take a look at exactly what was happening on stage. Estelle was up there with two backup singers (who also danced a lot) and a few other guys who were providing the music, both canned and live. Save for a moment when the bass rattled the walls a bit, the sound mix was generally clean all night, which made up for the lack of sightlines.

The setlist jumped around from tracks on her two albums, songs like "No Substitute Love," "Come Over," "More Than Friends," "Back to Love" "1980" and "Thank You." She dropped in bits of covers, too, like Bob Marley's "s ThIs Love" and "One Love." Her music blends and incorporates many styles: R&B, soul, reggae, hip-hop, pop.

Way more than she was at the VooDoo show, Estelle was upbeat and engaged with her fans all night, stirring their mood and showing lots of gratitude. She called one guy up on stage for some dancing. I couldn't see what was going on, but she warned him a few times, good-naturedly, about what he was doing ("Don't touch it," she said.) 

She closed with "American Boy," which ignited a rowdy sing-along, then poured a little more accelerant on the fire with a tight cover of the Jacksons' bright and bouyant "Blame It On the Boogie."  A couple of folks danced out the bar after it was over, apropos of an entertaining night that was stripped down to its essentials: good music and talented music-makers. 

| Timothy Finn, The Star