Musiq Soulchild At The Independent: Still Your B-U-D-D-Y

He came on stage twenty minutes late and twenty minutes into his set announced he would have to cut his show short to catch a plane to New York City. There were problems with the sound and with his ear monitors. He did a lot of talking and, on the hits, often just held the microphone towards the audience so they could do the work of actually singing the songs. There was a gamely performed but superfluous fifteen minute tribute to Rick James, Gerald Levert and James Brown - this from a man who in his first three albums could have filled up an entire performance with nothing but neo-soul classics. He danced some and shook hands, hugged and high fived as many of his ecstatic fans as he could reach from the stage, and he mugged for hundreds of digital cameras, cameraphones and camcorders. He did a medley of some of his hits, and full-on versions of a couple more. He actually included the biggest song from his underrated "Soul Star" album of a few years back, "Just for the Night," which he'd failed to do in his last local show at The Fillmore around the time of its release, and then led the audience in a singalong of the crazy creative title song.

It almost sounds like he was a disappointment. And yet...and yet...at times he sang like a reincarnated straight-up jazz singer, scatting and vocalesing his way through material that didn't realize it could be jazzified. His personality was winning and his showmanship superb. The term crowd-pleaser was invented for just such a performer as Musiq Soulchild. He teased the audience with promises of his current single, the summertime smash that is peaking in winter, the irresistible "Buddy," and even credited the inspiration for the song, the bass line from Taana Gardner's dancefloor giant, "Heartbeat."

It is in "Buddy" that the appeal of Musiq Soulchild has been distilled and finessed. He has always been our Buddy - the guy next door in love with the girl next door, hip, cool, but not too cool to be corny when it was called for, able to express the romantic dilemmas of that guy he portrays so well. Even when Musiq is trying to be a hard rock superstar (a hard on the ears metal show complete with audience dives at the Giftcenter one drizzly Valentines Day) or Vegas it up with the aforementioned tribute medley to fallen r&b stars, he remains knowable. Of course, the guy next door has rock star fantasies and, given the chance to live them out, he's gonna do it! Of course, despite the fact that he has written some of the most telling, candid, perceptive songs about modern romance of the past ten years, he doesn't want to be regarded as "soft." He's just like the guy next door, and underneath it all, still our Buddy.