Etheridge: guts and pipes

Jonathan Weber

Friday, June 25, 1999 | 3:25 a.m.

There's taking chances. There's even living on the edge.

And then there's Melissa Etheridge.

Perhaps because she couldn't think of any good segues, the 32-year-old rock star performed more than two hours of what's-she-gonna-do-next recklessness. She even let the drummer pound out a quick solo on her guitar strings. After the second encore, she left without announcement or the traditional fanfare.

Gutsy.

But what really whipped the standing-room-only crowd of Melissa maniacs into a lather was her open-throttle throat. Thursday night, in the first of two nights at the Hard Rock Hotel's The Joint, the snappy blonde got your attention with faint whispers, howling vibratos and everything in between.

Ironically, it was the "in between" that slowed an otherwise potent set of recent material ("If I Wanted To," "Yes I Am," "Come to My Window"), as Etheridge often appeared at a loss for words between songs. Though such ballads as "Silent Legacy" and "Dance Without Sleeping" dreamily melted one into another, similarly perfected mixtures were unfortunately the exception, not the rule.

Case in point: After mesmerizing the audience with the above segue, Etheridge began polling the music-hungry crowd for their hometowns. A few stops back, she took her sweet time arcanely joking about the latest Rolling Stone story on her: "I tried to hide it -- I'm a geek."

Dave Letterman she ain't.

Letting the air out of the set didn't prove fatal, however. Monologue abandoned, the band took a breather, and Etheridge stayed out for 15 minutes of acoustic bliss. Here Etheridge shined her brightest. No jokes. No stammering for the right words. Just a 12-string and a few irresistible tunes, one of which Etheridge penned at age 15, never recorded and rarely performs.

Another featured Etheridge flipping her guitar over backwards and playing it like a pair of bongos.

Thus, as she peeled back the superfluous layers, the magic of Etheridge's songwriting became more fully exposed. Acoustically, the singer-songwriter was at her sweetly sincere best.

Etheridge continued touting percussive innovation even after the guys came back onstage. Gathered around the drummer, who played momentarily at the front of the stage, the guitarist, bassist and Etheridge held their guitars up to take a melodic, stick-on-string beating.

Etheridge shrewdly saved her most notable hit, "I'm the Only One," for the end of the first encore, descending (and disappearing momentarily) with her guitar player onto the floor near the front of the stage. How they continued to play with a sea of grabby hands so close by was unclear. Audibly, the tasty solo begun onstage climaxed smoothly until the two were gently thrust back where they started.

True, it wasn't exactly a mosh pit in front of the stage. OK, no bat heads were bitten off onstage. But when was the last time you saw a woman belt out the AC/DC tune "Shook Me" with all the ferocity of the original and no concern for the faint-hearted?

It takes guts -- and pipes to match.

Etheridge has both.

MELISSA ETHERIDGE rocks The Joint at the Hard Rock Thursday night.

ETHAN MILLER / STAFF