We just squeezed in to the sold-out show featuring Yael Naim, that
French-Israeli songstress of MacBook Air fame. She kicked off her U.S. tour last night at the Bowery Ballroom, and celebrated the U.S. release of her new album by shining
love and light and her fabulous, fabulous cheekbones down on the lucky,
multilingual crowd last night.
I have to
say, I’ll leave the music critiquing to the music critics…But as a woman, DAMN,
those cheekbones! It’s patently not fair to give all that talent to one woman,
along with long, flowing tresses, cheekbones to rival Angelina’s, and a dimple
to boot. But, yes, on to the show…
What struck
me most about the entire show was the pure delight Yael seemed to take in being
there. You can’t say that about every jaded musician you see. Sometimes it
seemed she was having more fun than the audience was, and the audience was
having quite a grand time. (I personally don’t think you can rawk out to “New Soul,” but some folks
definitely did. There was seriously a three-person, “New Soul” mosh pit goin’
on.)
Yael’s a
big fan of the sing-a-long, which might have gone over a tad better if everyone
knew all of her songs…or the language that she was singing in. But all in all,
she glimmered and glowed and thoroughly embraced an extended, kick-ass version
of Britney Spears’ “Toxic.”
The woman is having fun, and the fact that she looks like a hot yoga teacher
doesn’t hurt.
She even
played “New Soul” twice –why the hell not?
And can I
just mention her band? Of course, her songwriting collaborator and partner David
Donatien was there, looking cool and slightly bemused throughout the evening. Then
there was her keyboardist, who looked like Doogie Howser’s hot, younger French
cousin. (Only, with more hair). Dude played the keyboards as if each key was a
woman’s (or man’s) nipple; that was some seriously seductive keyboard tappin’. And
my fave band member of the night (and I’m so sorry, I don’t know your name) was her bass/guitar player. Mr. Guitar
Man looked like Dog the Bounty Hunter’s hep-cat, ex-pat cousin. (Only, with
more hair.) And he could emote like
there was no tomorrow.
Ah, but
there are, thankfully, many more tomorrows on the tour. See if they’re coming
to a neighborhood near you.
And here's "New Soul"...Yael told us, in her adorable, intoxicatingly cute-sexy way, that she wrote "New Soul" because she used to believe that she was, in fact, an old soul. When she got a little older and that realized that old souls are supposed to be especially wise and enlightened, and she didn't feel that way...well, the rest, as Steve Jobs might say, is history:
