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A Few Changes This Year
Attendance seemed down this year and the mood seemed more
subdued. I know quite a few San Francisco folk who decided
to stay in the city this year while in years past they were
inclined to venture down to San Jose. I'm glad I did, but
it sure wasn't easy. I got to the train station thinking I
could take the 10:30 train. Instead, I was told that they're
doing construction on the tracks on the weekend and the trains
have been replaced by busses that make fewer stops and run
less frequently. I missed the 10:07 bus and had to wait until
12:12 for the next one. I bought a Sunday paper and started
leafing through it. Once the bus arrived, we made four stops
and it took us a little more than an hour and a half to get
down there. We didn't run into traffic as Puppy and I did
going down to San Jose a couple of weeks
ago. Once I arrived, it was easy to walk to the park so
at least that didn't change
Kim English |
Joya |
Crystal Waters |
A Day of Divas
This year, the "entertainment" was chock-a-block
with Diva action. TWO
YEARS AGO the acts seemed a little more diverse in terms
of representation. This year, they represented a specific
ten-year span of club hits from about 1984 to 1994, all from
a str8 female and people of colour perspective. As is usually
the case with these types of events, this year the acts were
almost consistently faded chart-toppers and for some reason
they're still consistently good and totally appropriate to
the event and the community it represents. After a couple
of years of trying to get San Francisco's "entertainment"
on a similar track, I've given up. SF is too diverse and too
political to ever have a single event represent anything remotely
resembling a community. They get bogged down in how they would
like things to be instead of accepting things as they are
and San Jose doesn't. So it's a great change of pace. It was
nice to mill around and get some sun and watch a few Divas
perform.
GIOIA BRUNO
The first act I saw was Gioia Bruno, formerly of the freestyle
band, Exposé. She performed on the dance stage up on
the little hill. She had a couple of female dancers and the
three of them were working it HARD. At one point, Gioia (pronounced,
Joy-ah) asked the technician to pause her backing CD so she
could breathe a little. We didn't mind as she was in top form
to belt out Exposé's two big 80s club stompers, "Let
me be the one" and "Point of No Return". Her
new, solo material was all disposable euro-trash and really
sounded weak when presented side-by-side with her 80's hits.
I wish she would go back to that freestyle sound and bust
out with an acid-freestyle number, but obviously she's only
the vocalist and the musical side of things seem to be handled
by guys behind the scenes.
KIM ENGLISH
She only did three numbers... all new, all about God and none
of them very memorable. I liked the sentiment of her next
single, "Thankful" but honey YOU'RE A DANCE ACT...
I don't know why she's trying to do R&B style ballads.
She didn't do "Supernatural" and she didn't do "Nightlife".
When I lived in Europe, "Nightlife" had just come
out as a double-pack 12-inch and I couldn't go anywhere without
hearing it FOR WEEKS! It was on a car commercial, all the
clubs played several versions of it, the radio played it.
I even heard the instrumental version being played as muzak
at Victoria train station's Burger King on my way home several
times! Now, years later, she's obviously the headliner on
the dance stage and can she even hum a few notes? Hell no.
They shut down the dancing after she did her three songs.
I know I wasn't the only one walking away feeling betrayed
and ripped off because I heard several drag queens and celebutants
grumbling as we trumped down the little hill to the main stage
area.
CRYSTAL WATERS
She only did three numbers... which are basically all her
hits. As she went through a perfunctory rendition of "Gypsy
Woman (She's Homeless)" and it's played out refrain,
"La Da Dee La Da Da" I couldn't help but think that
it's still probably the only pop song about a homeless women
salvaging her self-esteem. It's strange that with all the
buzz surrounding such a solid cross-over pop hit produced,
Crystal never parlayed any of it into activisim or any overt
advocacy for the homeless and their plight. Unless the odd
chat in an interview does more than raise awareness of an
ever worsening condition for thousands of Americans.
The coordinated dancing during the breakdowns of "100%
Pure Love" were reminiscent of the models moving around
her in the song's video and that's still my favourite song
by her. I don't know why the opening Divas got more stage
time and attention then the supposed headliners. Secretly,
I suspect that because Crystal Waters was performing at an
"after-party" event and the promoters of it were
probably splitting the cost of flying her out here, it was
probably due to a contractual arrangement.
Her act was tightly integrated between crowd interaction
and coordinated moves with her dancers. She definately put
on a well rehearsed show which made the end so unbelievable.
After she said goodnight and goodbye, the three local drag
queens who MCed all day got up there and got the crowd screaming
for an encore that never came. The least she could have done
was acknowlege the fans standing there for 15 minutes. The
disoriented interaction between the security and the locals
on stage added to the confustion in the crowd. Again, I left
feeling betrayed and ripped-off.
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CeCe Peniston and William
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CeCe Peniston Worked It
Before Crystal Waters closed out the afternoon, CeCe Peniston
whipped the crowd and a boy called William into a frenzy.
Actually, it was his whip. She got a couple of muscular, black
men up on stage to dance all sexy with her and William wanted
to get up there too. He was actually the best of them all
as you can see from the picture at left, he was gyrating as
she sang her club fave, "Hit by Love". Between choruses
she would slap him with the little cat-o-nine-tails he brought
with him. I could tell he's a natural born entertainer coz
just when it was about to get extremely tedious, he would
run over to the other side of the stage and do something different
which forced CeCe to follow his lead. She did four numbers
the last of which was her massive cross-over chart-toping
hit, "Finally". While it was a good performance,
I was hoping she would do the follow-up single to "Finally".
It's called, "Love for Love" and is a far more mature
execution of the rhythmic and lyrical ideas initiated in "Finally".
The Cheeseballs Worked it HARDER
These kids actually played instruments. They sang great and
they kept the crowd pumped with an endless cavalcade of disco
and dance hits ranging from Sister Sledge's "We Are Family"
to Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch's "Good Vibration"
They made the songs their own and added a few comedic skits
between songs. I think they're a local South Bay band but
they were definately the most entertaining act up there just
for the sheer novelty factor of keeping the crowd guessing
as to what they would do next.
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Proudest
Season Begins
