Lady Gaga dons a fan’s home-made UVA shirt during “Telephone.”
PHOTO BY TOM DALY

Update: Check out the SLIDESHOW from Lady Gaga’s Glitterway.

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The premise that Lady Gaga is the Madonna for Gen Y — the sex appeal, the pop, the choreography— is accurate, but it’s lazy at best. Gaga goes deeper than she gets credit for, decades beyond just cone bras in the ’80s, taking inspiration from rockers whose fans probably can’t stand her— from Elvis Presley’s scandalous hip-wiggles to Bowie’s androgynous glam. As a revolutionary, Gaga surpasses them, if only because they laid the groundwork.

“I love Gaga because she’s a combination of Madonna’s sexuality and Michael Jackson’s morbidity that she brings to a new level,” said fourth year UVA student and Gaga follower Tasha Nadasdi. “Everyone else plays it safe with standards. She says, ‘F*** it.’”

Hordes of sparkly, scantily-clad, slightly intoxicated UVA boys and girls flooded the John Paul Jones Arena last night, along with greying but fabulously energetic middle-aged adults, all of them shouting out Gaga’s name and waving (more)

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Three years after Sprint-Nextel spun it off to focus on wireless, landline carrier Embarq has been purchased by CenturyTel in an $11.6 billion deal. The two carriers will become CenturyLink, headquartered in Monroe, Louisiana, and serve 7.5 million customers in 33 states, according to a release. (And we remember the days when the local carrier was called Centel!)

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Hotcakes owner Keith Rosenfeld tells us that the infamous Jos� De Brito (left), former chef-owner of the French-inspired bistro and food, cheese, and wine emporium, Ciboulette (now home to Orzo in the West Main Market), is back. The colorful Frenchman had a loyal following who braved his sometimes inelegant manner (that is, normal behavior in France) because they loved his food so much. In fact, Rosenfeld reminded us that De Brito devotees formed a group called Friends of Ciboulette in the last two years of the bistro’s existence, with each member chipping in several hundred dollars to keep his business going. When we reported on Ciboulette closing, distraught foodies called the Hook to ask where De Brito had gone.

Well, now he’s back and serving up dinner on Friday and Saturday nights at Hotcakes in the Barracks Road Shopping Center. Rosenfeld says that De Brito’s reputation is such that folks from as far away as Washington, D.C. have already come by, including the general manager of the Inn at Little Washington.

“It’s really high-end stuff,” says Rosenfeld of De Brito’s menu, which changes every week.

Here’s this week’s menu. Dinner is served from 5:45 to 8pm on Friday and Saturday.

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Dolores O’Riordan
PHOTO BY HAWES SPENCER
[Click the pic for slideshow]

What happens when you put a singer who’s sold 43 million records into a subterranean club typically reserved for tiny acoustic shows? And then advertise hard for two weeks on the radio? Oh, and don’t forget to make it free.

You get traffic– at least 300 people piling into Gravity Lounge Monday, December 3, to hear Dolores O’Riordan, who spent over a decade atop the charts as the frontwoman and lead songwriter for Irish supergroup the Cranberries. Also on the bill was Charlottesville singer-songwriter Helen Horal and Australian rockers called The Kin.

“This is a charming town,” declared O’Riordan, now touring under her own name, as she took the stage with two members of her band, brothers Steve and Denny DeMarchi.

“I’m nursing a bit of a cold,” she said, “so you’re gonna get the Snuffleupagus version of the songs tonight.” Anyone worried she’d be one of those artists insisting on (more)

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Ryan Adams
PHOTO COURTESY STARR HILL PRESENTS

There’s a unique sort of enthusiasm reserved for Ryan Adams fans that I’ve never really understood. I was surprised, for example, when I learned that the Paramount concert had sold out, then astonished when I learned how quickly the seats had gone. When a second show was announced and the same thing happened, I was dumbfounded.

It’s even more confusing up close. In college, I was recruited to play auxiliary guitar for a duo of die-hards. Their set list was built from a hodgepodge of tunes scribbled on a piece of paper divided into three sections: “originals,” “covers,” and “Ryan.” (I’d curse under my breath every time they’d file a Hendrix tune under “covers.”)

This time I was outnumbered. Adams was supposed to be here in July, but he was reportedly grounded by high winds on a New York tarmac. So now he got to entertain twice as many local fans. I attended the first night, September 13.

It was only 8:40 when he took the stage– pretty early for a rock star of his caliber, I suppose, but then again, one shouldn’t mess with a house that’s already been stood up. Right away, I was impressed by his eagerness; Adams actually chased after hired-gun guitarist Neal Casal on most of the trickier runs. That’s more than I can say for most of his songwriterly alt-country peers.

Casal fought back on “Dear John” with killer harmonies that rivaled Adams’ own, exposing the trump card for the night’s performance: the Cardinals are much more than a rhythm section– think Flecktones or Double Trouble here. Moptops or not, they’re consummate professionals, and it’s really no wonder that Adams wanted to put out his last record under their name.

To all outward appearances, Adams was having a ball. I’d be excited, too, if I were playing with these guys: Jon Graboff bounced around on his lap steel with intonation precise enough to make a piano player jealous, drummer Brad Pemberton brewed up a thunderstorm on his toms for “Easy Plateau,” and before I knew it, the band had become more than the sum of its parts– even though one of those parts was a guy whose songs get their own category on the list.

The Dylan-inspired “To Be Young (Is To Be Sad, Is To Be High)” came across cleverly reincarnated as a heavy, loping lament, but ultimately was still a dubious choice for the finale. I left without “La Cienega Just Smiled,” “Answering Bell,” or any of the songs I’d still found tolerable even after those excruciating bar gigs. Even “New York, New York,” the breakout hit from Gold, was left behind.

I was surprised to find that I didn’t really care. I came in as a skeptic, but Adams and his killer ensemble won me over. After years of making mid-tempo alt-country, he’s still enthusiastic about his music, and as improbable as I might find that, it’s also pretty contagious.

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