Live From New York!

Riotbecki and a newly red Gwenno work their magic, above

Gwenno is pretty in pink, above; Rosay takes the lead, below

My friend Matt and I caught the Pipettes show last night at the wonderful (and beautifully restored) Blender Theatre (aka Gramercy Theatre). The show started with the bizarre Monster Bobby, who is credited with creating the Pipettes and is the guitarist of their backup band, the Cassette. I'm not really sure what his deal is (he plays tape recordings of bizarre noises and occasionally sings), but luckily it was quiet enough that the audience could continue to socialize while waiting for the main event. Next up was Jersey girl Nicole Atkins, whose just-released CD you might recall is my new fave. She did not disappoint live. In fact, it became pretty clear halfway into her set that a huge percentage of the crowd was there for her (and became even more apparent when 20 percent of the crowd left when she finished). Matt happened to know her publicist, Benny Tarantini, so I got to gush about how much I like her. He said her performance on Letterman was a huge success and top-search on Google (it was easy to see why). The (dare I say) hottest part of her set was when this studly Jersey guy in a leather jacket next to us disagreed with her announced final number and shouted, "Neptune City!" to which she replied, "OK, we can do that," and she went ahead and did that one instead. (Has that ever happened? Well, like I said, he was awfully hot.)

Then it was party time and the Pipettes came flying out on stage in their signature polka-dot dresses performing "Dance and Boogie," one of the bonus tracks of the U.S. version of their debut disc. The girls looked and sounded great, which was a relief as I wasn't sure how much of their sound was studio trickery. Sure, "Pull Shapes" and "Your Kisses Are Wasted on Me"-- which some guy wearing a Go-Go's Prime Time (Talk Show) tour T-shirt pointed out to me is the same song as "We Got the Beat" -- stand out as the band's best songs, but I still thought the show was a hoot and didn't really agree with Matt's one-trick pony assessment (having songs that stand out as "singles" is a good thing and hey, Bananarama stills puts out fun records), even if I could see why he was far more taken with Nicole than with the Fab Three. The night was made extra fun by running into Shannon from work, finally meeting online pal Brian Ferrari and randomly meeting my agent friend Christopher's concert-loving harem by way of a Studio 54 crack. (Love you, girls!)

Just a little touch of star quality: Nicole Atkins, below

Check out her fun American Express ad, below. She reminds me of a cross between Justine Bateman, Gina Gershon and my friend Kandy!