Melissa Etheridge

Melissa Etheridge has taken to the possibilities of the DVD format, first with Live and Alone, and now with this project, a video of her tour for the album Lucky. (The DVD is also available packaged with a CD.) In fact, this is a live version of Lucky; although Etheridge and an interviewer (in a 27-minute encounter that is one of the special features) discuss how her shows are getting to be up to three hours long, the April 17, 2004, performance at New York City's Roseland Ballroom featured here runs 81 minutes and includes only the 13 Lucky tunes, plus one song, the travelogue crowd-pleaser "The Good Girls and Boys," which was intended for the album but dropped. Thus, the concert provides an interesting contrast to the album. Etheridge, alternately playing her trademark acoustic Ovation 12-string guitar (with not all of the 12 strings strung) and an electric, is backed by electric guitarist Philip Sayce, bass player Mark Browne, and renowned drummer Kenny Aronoff, with Trace Foster adding guitar and keyboards off-stage and off-camera. The group achieves a classic rock sound often reminiscent of the Rolling Stones as they churn through Etheridge's mid-tempo rockers and rhythm ballads while she sings in her throaty voice. Sporting a head-mic, she prowls the stage, her eye-popping facial expressions (as she herself acknowledges in the commentary track that is another of the special features) often coming off as exaggerated on video, even if they worked for the audience in the hall. As always, she is impassioned as she sings a range of lyrics that include feisty statements of purpose such as the title song, sensitive confessions of romantic insecurity like "Will You Still Love Me," and reflections on the position of gays in society, notably the anthem "Tuesday Morning," which uses the homosexuality of Mark Bingham, one of the heroes of Flight 93 on 9/11, to harangue people who oppose gay rights. In addition to the interview and the commentary (which feature the four on-stage bandmembers and is a good-natured avalanche of self-congratulation), there is a 44-minute documentary, "A Day in the Life," which follows Etheridge on the day of the concert from her hotel room to shopping, lunch, and sound check, and has the quality of a home movie, albeit one the singer's fans will no doubt enjoy. Add it up, and the DVD includes more than four hours of material (that means viewing the concert twice, once with commentary), all recorded on April 17, 2004, no doubt the most well-documented day of Etheridge's life. ~ William Ruhlmann, All Music Guide