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TORONTO - There’s a whole lot about Beth Ditto to love.
The plus-size singer of dance-punk outfit Gossip has a killer voice -- think the soul of Aretha Franklin, the drama of Siouxsie Sioux with the trill of Dolly Parton thrown in -- amazing style, infectious energy, dance moves for days and southern charm.
The ingredients all combined to quickly win over the crowd who turned out to see Ditto and her Gossip bandmates at The Opera House on Wednesday night.
The 26-year-old flaming red-headed vocalist also squeezed her major curves into a skintight black slip dress which she later ditched completely for the encore to reveal her black lingerie underneath as she belted out Tina Turner’s What’s Love Got To Do With It.
What’s not to love?
The group, rounded out by guitarist-keyboardist Brace Paine, drummer Hannah Billie and touring bassist Chris Sutton, are on the road in support of their Rick Rubin-produced album, Music For Men, and its catchy single, Heavy Cross, but it’s actually the band’s fourth studio album.
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They formed a decade ago in Searcy, Ar., but later moved to Olympia, Wash., and started to get attention with their third studio disc, 2006’s Standing In The Way of Control, with its winning punk-soul-disco sound and climb to the top of the U.K. indie chart.
On Wednesday night, Billie’s propulsive drumming kicked off the opening song, Dimestore Diamond, from Music For Men, as Ditto began singing off stage but wasted no time when she finally appeared -- to hugh cheers and applause -- to get closer to the crowd, who she was constantly touching as the evening progressed.
At one point, she even appeared to open an aspirin bottle for someone at the front.
“I love Toronto ‘cause everyone’s related,” said Ditto. “I feel like I’ve seen every one of you all before.”
She also gushed the hearty reception to the band was like having an “Obama night, for us Americans, that was exciting, people were shooting fireworks off their front porches, this is like that,” and let everyone know which Toronto club she was going to be hanging out at after the show (The Social).
Song standouts proved to be a combination of older tunes like Making Waves In The Water, Yr Mangled Heart, Fire Sign, Listen Up, and Keeping You Alive, along with new songs Men In Love, Love Long Distance, 8th Wonder, Four Letter Word, and Heavy Cross.
Ditto, a poster girl for the gay and lesbian indie rock community who has appeared in the magazines Out And The Advocate and was named NME’s coolest woman in rock in 2005, takes her role model duties seriously.
She ended the hour-and-ten-minute concert with a plea to reclaim “queer art” before launching into an a capella snippet of Queen’s We Are The Champions and got the crowd to sing along.
It was a sweet ending to a spectacular show.
Ditto is a star, no question about it.
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Gossip
The Opera House
4.5 stars out of 5