Lauryn Hill takes audience to the musical mountaintop

Geoff Carter

Monday, July 26, 1999 | 10:15 a.m.

Lauryn Hill is walking, talking proof of exactly why music criticism, as it is now, is a useless exercise. When a live performer hooks into that greater energy -- as Hill did Saturday night at the MGM Grand Garden -- music becomes something more than eyes and ears can translate. All at once the music becomes just a component of a bigger experience.

With eyes closed, you pull sound in through your chest and release it through your hands and feet. Your mind hums; your id seems to rise from your physical self.

Good music, as it should be described, makes you feel like you're falling in love. When a performance reaches that level, when musicians and fans are in the same pocket, what matters the stage layout, the set list, the proficiency of the players? This is why bands acquire fans in the first place -- their music makes people feel good, whether the sound is scratchy garage punk or fat-bottomed funk.

Having said that, it should be noted that Hill and her "family" -- a tight unit of players whose numbers topped 18 -- made the impossible possible: They made the MGM's cavernous sports arena sound fresh, natural, vibrant beyond expectations.

The mix was impeccable, with nary a lost note or ear-straining squeal, yet felt loose, extemporized. "Superstar," "Lost Ones" and "Doo Wop (That Thing)" bested their recorded counterparts, while "To Zion" and "Ready Or Not" might as well have been created on the spot, still bursting with the promise and zeal Hill must have felt when singing them for the first time.

And oh yes, it was fun. Hill tagged every song a "joint," and the band (pun intended) smoked them down. A "DJ vs. band" contest was more entertaining than one would have expected, and drew fast, impeccable covers of the Jackson Five, Stevie Wonder and Bob Marley out of Hill. (Her approximation of Marley was particularly heartfelt; it's no secret that the reggae great is one of her idols). The DJs responded with some deft scratching and needle drops of The Artist and Ruff Ryders.

The two parties went back and forth for several minutes, trying to best each other; when it was done and the two "dueling" factions had reunited, Hill did a classic double take:

"Y'all almost made me pass out!" she laughed, looking down at the front row. "I saw Ms. Nancy Wilson in the audience. Give it up for Nancy Wilson!"

The venerable jazz/R&B vocalist no doubt sees a lot of herself in Hill -- a singer at home in nearly any genre, from hip-hop to reggae to gospel. Her cover of Roberta Flack's "Killing Me Softly" -- a hit that, unlike many other songs on the radio, deserved every last second of airplay it got -- zoomed from sweet soul number to street stomp in a matter of seconds, and a show-stopping encore of "Everything is Everything" could have gone on for three days without approaching monotony.

The audience likely wouldn't have minded -- a weekend locked in dreamlike reverie, swaying and hip-shaking inside the Lauryn Hill experience.