Lily Allen - review

Lily Allen - 9:30 Club - 4/17

Why we love Lily: she's bawdy, doesn't take herself too seriously, and she's better than Katy Perry.

Yes, the bratty Brit came to the 9:30 Club Friday evening, supported by one of SHIFT's favorite Seattle bands with the good sense to take their name from V for Vendetta.

Natalie Portman's Shaved Head and their lead tune Me + Yr Daughter weren't familiar to the crowd of often teenaged Lilyputans, but the band relentlessly rocked through their set, resembling former energetic tourmates CSS. They may have arrived strangers, but they somehow proved DC can still dance.

Then out comes Lily. Our five foot faux-cockney girl was glammed up in a cut-off Betsey Johnson dress and glitter heels. To her credit, Miss Allen is an on-point performer, and sang most of her new record frolicking through a rollicking crowd, pacing solid tune after tune, and telling enough intimate and sardonic stories between each number to get through a pack of Marlboros.

She dedicated songs to her mum, dad and men who couldn't seem to sex her right, and kept the crowd singing along to forty-five second versions of tracks from her first record, including LDN and Smile.

And as if there wasn't a better town for it, she led us in a sea of bird flipping to Fuck You, a one time kiss-off to George W. Bush that is now universally appropriate.

The crowd was with her up until the last second, even through surprises like the Kaiser Chiefs' Oh My God and her closing number, originally attempted by Britney Spears. Allen had recorded a slowed-down version of Womanizer, but neither that incarnation or the one she did with Ellen in the bathroom came out. Instead, she pulled a ferocious, full-on eat-me-Perez-Hilton curtain closer that left the crowd smiling in a sweat.

Rating: Everything's just wonderful.
-a special contribution by SHIFTmate, Joe Gizzi