Melissa Etheridge in Morristown: Not your average strum-and-hum solo show

Melissa Etheridge in Morristown. Photo by Kevin Coughlin
Melissa Etheridge in Morristown. Photo by Kevin Coughlin
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Melissa Etheridge in Morristown. Photo by Kevin Coughlin
Melissa Etheridge in Morristown. Photo by Kevin Coughlin

By Kevin Coughlin

If you wanted a star to perform at the Grand Canyon, Melissa Etheridge  would be the logical choice.

No amplification needed, thank you very much.

Melissa Etheridge at the Mayo Performing Arts Center. Photo by Kevin Coughlin
Melissa Etheridge at the Mayo Performing Arts Center. Photo by Kevin Coughlin

Etheridge’s solo show at Morristown’s Mayo Performing Arts Center on Thursday showed off one of the great voices in rock and roll.  At 54, with breast cancer behind her, she still shreds with the best of them.

Make no mistake — this solo tour is not one of those cozy, intimate, strum-and-hum affairs.

Thanks to digital looping technology and enough guitars to stock a Sam Ash store, Etheridge is a band unto herself — a rip-roaring soaring snarling churning yearning yowling howling hurricane of sound.

Throughout the two-hour concert she started songs by laying down layers of percussion: Bongos, tambourine and cajon.

Then she strapped on an assortment of acoustic and electric guitars, including a “trans-gendered” double-necked beauty (once owned by a he-to-she ax person), and let loose.

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There were a couple of piano interludes (Dance Without Sleeping, and Joan Armatrading’s The Weakness In Me) and some bluesy harp licks (Monster, from her latest album, This Is M.E., which also boasted some down-and-dirty slide work).

Mostly, though, Etheridge attacked her jangly 12-string instruments with rhythmic ferocity. By the time she reached her encore, Like the Way I Do, you expected the roadies to race onstage with fire extinguishers.

Melissa Etheridge at the Mayo Performing Arts Center.Photo by Kevin Coughlin
Melissa Etheridge at the Mayo Performing Arts Center.Photo by Kevin Coughlin

The longtime gay rights advocate let her music do most of the talking onstage, but she did toss off a few remarks about her messy breakups.

“You made the same mistakes I did, right around when I made them,” Etheridge told an appreciative audience. “And you, like me, found out how very expensive they are!”

Ah, but they paid off with some anthemic gold.

If I Only Wanted To,  I Want to Be In Love, I Want to Come Over, Come to My Window, I’m the Only One, Bring Me Some Water…  nobody yearns with such titanic fury.

Etheridge married actress Linda Wallem last year.  One wishes them domestic bliss… with just enough speed bumps to keep the anthems coming.

MELISSA ETHERIDGE SET LIST IN MORRISTOWN:

Ain’t It Heavy
If I Wanted To
Mercy
I Want to Be in Love
I Want to Come Over
Dance Without Sleeping
Crazy For Me
Like a Preacher
Come to My Window
Chrome Plated Heart
The Weakness in Me (Joan Armatrading cover)
Monster
I’m the Only One
Bring Me Some Water

Encore:

Like the Way I Do

 

 

 

 

 

 

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