OTTAWA -- Some guys get all the breaks.
Take David Usher, for example.
It was a downright balmy clear evening, with the perfume of a million tulips in the air, the Moist frontman and official poster boy of the bedroom walls of teenaged girls had the world at his feet at last night's Major's Hill Park concert.
Okay, not the whole world. Just about 6,000 screaming and stripping females.
If he ever decides to pack the whole pop-icon gig in, Usher would have no problem landing work as a Calvin Klein model.
Dressed in a skinny black T-shirt and slim designer jeans, all the pop darling had to do was point or stare in any direction to cause a thrill in the hearts of his predominately female audience.
Usher sure knows how to work his stuff.
But wait. There was no bubble-gum pop to go along with the boy-toy looks. Usher, who's on a sabbatical from his band Moist, proved to be a more complex, darker character than his pretty-boy image would lead you to believe.
At least that's what he wants you to believe.
Drawing from his first solo release, 1998's Little Songs, and last year's smash Morning Orbit, his 15-song set proved to be a series of dramatic contradictions.
An artist who headed in two opposite directions at the same time, Usher's take-no-prisoners rock, combined with horny lyrics, made for hazy highs and crashing lows.
If Usher's music were a novel, it would be filed beside Bob Guccione and Henry Miller. The music moves and grooves while his lyrics speak of bare bodies and naked souls. Very heavy stuff this.
Usher jumped into action, opening with furious versions of Too Close To The Sun, Blinded, A Day in The Life and Babyskin Tattoo that showed he was capable of raunching it up as good as Motorhead. Well, almost.
But something in Usher's polished stage presence wore thin. With low-tech instrumentation, heavy on guitars, he ran out of musical steam.
He did do the Flower Duet on Black Black Heart and threw in some brass on Butterfly. Otherwise, the music all fit neatly into one angry and melodramatic hissy-fit, while his moody lyrics blurred into a morbid Leonard Cohen karaoke, more posed than poised.
But still potent with his fans who threw their tops (thank goodness for the warmth of the evening!) and sang backup on Alone in the Universe, Forest Fire, Jesus Was My Girl and his encores, St. Lawrence River and Breathe.
For the fans, Usher's tortured artist performance was intoxicating.
Opening act Jordy Birch was a scratch. Power popsters The Full Nine provided one of the more memorable moments of the festival so far, if for no other reason than sheer volume.
JAM! Rating: 3 out of 5
