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Bobby Brown's reputation precedes him: the boozing, the carousing, the kvetching with his wife, Whitney Houston, all captured on Bravo's reality TV show, Being Bobby Brown.
Since the king of new jack swing seems to have been making more personal appearances in courtrooms than on stages in the last decade, the announcement that he'd play the House of Blues on Thursday gave one pause.
Would Houston show?
Would Bobby's pants stay on?
Would Brown be sober?
Before answering, I must say that in Brown's rhythm-and-rhyme heyday, 1988-90, he provided some of my top live-show moments, as he was a frenetic dancer who could somersault across stages while never missing a smooth howl or a nasty rap.
And now the answers:
No Whitney.
Barely.
Can't say.
Brown dropped the mike while tearing into "Don't Be Cruel." I dropped my pen. And I wasn't drinking. Brown played it off with a quick laugh.
Resplendent in a white, pimped-out suit with a fedora pulled low over his eyes (nothing above his waist stayed on long), Brown coolly ripped into his song catalog with Drambuie smoothness. It was without the frenzy of yore, but the bark and bite were still there as he gnashed into sing-song raps, powerfully vamping the finales of "Cruel" and "My Prerogative."
"I bust my ass for you," he yelped, grabbing his rump, then bumping and grinding and grabbing his crotch through the drum thwack and silvery-stringed synthesizers of "That's the Way Love Is." Though preoccupied with lascivious tongue-wagging, Brown never missed a lick of "Love's" melody.
Giggling and promising he wouldn't re-create the backward duck-shuffle of 1989's "Every Little Step" video, Brown did just that, twirling while bringing his tough tenor to the song's screaming end.
Sloppy moments and strained notes came after a brief change into a black bowler-topped outfit. But Brown expertly spaced out the phrasings of his lover's laments, as if planning a night's seduction. Here's hoping.
philly.com
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