A funny thing happened on the way to the 21st century. In the midst of America's love affair with prepackaged music, from Lou Bega's boppy "Mambo No. 5" to the Backstreet Boys' opus "I Want it That Way," there was a primal scream let out by one of the last original club kids. Pointing out that electronica could find middle ground between Prodigy's fascist nonsense and U2's horrid experimentation, Moby's "Play" boxed the listening public's collective ears.
Moby's Thursday night show at the 9:30 Club made so much irrelevant in the artist's short but storied history in the public eye. His two hour set proved wrong the music journalists who talk about his downward trend as a recording artist, following the releases of "18" and "Hotel." Remnants of the playground bullying of Eminem and the cries of "sell-out" for licensing "Porcelain" and "Bodyrock" could be heard in the distance, but faintly enough to be drowned out by a cricket sneezing.
Intro act Buck 65 is a hip-hop artist hailing from the mean streets of Nova Scotia (sure - you laugh now, but have you ever seen a grizzly bear drive by? Frightening stuff.) He gave a tremendous performance with good humor and scatterings of non-pretentious depth. Imagine The Streets losing their strong spoken-word ethic and replacing it with raspy, country-bred overtones. Unfortunately though, while his finger scratching skills were exceptional, Buck's song transitions were more than a little clumsy at times. Even so, Buck 65 had the look and on-stage finesse of a future star. Ultimately, the litany of stimulating subject matter - from a centaur's potency to an autobiographical rant - made his music easily accessible. Besides, any artist who pulls confetti out of his back pocket at not-so-random intervals should at least be considered for a headliner spot in the near future.
Much of the public's dislike for Moby over the years has stemmed from the conception that he assembles his music with the passivity of a spoiled brat with too many toys. Particularly closed-minded critics often conjure up images of him assembling different backbeats and blues riffs on a laptop in between cups of ridiculously expensive java. The unassuming exterior hides the fanaticism of an admitted former A.V. outcast who always dreamed of rock superstardom.
"Don't believe those celebrities who claim they were nerds in high school," asserted Moby to the 9:30 crowd. "They had friends and love lives in junior high and high school. You know that kid they had to call whenever the slide projector was stuck and you had to flick the switch a certain way?" he continued as he gestured with his right thumb. "That was me."
Moby's still that dork. Luckily, he's a dork who fell into a crowd that appreciated "Fantastic Drugs" while letting his love for music blossom into an intensity that CDs tend to trap at times. The real Moby comes out live, constantly bouncing around stage in black sneakers while spitting out fast guitar riffs and the occasional frantic bongo solo. His presence goes from an unassuming musician who spits out three bullet-fast "thank yous" after every number to a psyched out dynamo using a scant five-piece band format. This made even his most sprawling songs more intimate, a point accentuated by his slow and syrupy live version of the normally upbeat "Natural Blue."
"Intimate" is ultimately the word to define Moby's current demeanor, an apropos description of his return to his club land roots on this latest tour. Putting the overwhelming allure of big venue stadium shows on hold for an indefinite period, perhaps for good, might be the best decision he's made in a while. Even his iffy songs from this year's release, "Hotel," take on a new power when done in such a small and instrument-laden manner. The song "Spiders" is the best example of this. His tribute to David Bowie, the most touching albeit strange rock and roller from another planet, puts Moby in the same boat as the legendary glam/proto-punk icon. "We Are All Made of Stars" and "Honey" become less like dance club standards and more like an homage to Bowie, signaling that life here on Earth is indeed a strange and wonderful experience for even the staunchest outsider.
One didn't have to be close to the stage to see Moby more clearly than perhaps he or she'd be comfortable with. His shiny dome looked like it could fit E.T., and seemed to pull each eye farther away from the other. But when his eyes came forward, he was human again, and "Bodyrock" became the anthem of an overwhelming joy in finding parts. Starting out his encore with a straight ahead version of Lou Reed's classic "Take a Walk on the Wild Side" confirmed that the artist too often thought of as a synthesized human, even by his fans, indeed grew up beside each and every one of them.
