Review: Lady Sovereign & Chester French at Highline Ballroom

Note to the viewers of Lady Sovereign’s show at Highline Ballroom last night: when a musician points her microphone at you, you’re supposed to sing. Yes, that’s right. You sucked as an audience.


You could see it on Lady Sovereign’s face, as she rhymed her Brit-rapper heart out – she was annoyed. She kept trying to pump the crowd up with her hilarious stage antics: flipping the Sovereign-goers off, grabbing and caressing her boobs, and even splashing beer all over the kids right in front, à la Gallagher. She handed beers out, too, and went around the stage pouring Heineken in fans’ mouths. Who cares about swine flu?

Lady Sovereign pours beer into a fan's mouth

In fact, the sharing of the booze sparked a “Swine flu, Fuck you” chant during her hit song “Love Me or Hate Me.” A few enthusiastic admirers reveled in the messy beer fountain, and these people were generally the ones with their arms pumping at all times. There were a handful of people rocking out to her electro-grime music, but the majority of the audience refrained from dancing and cheering. When Lady Sov left the stage the first time, she looked back at the crowd members and indicated that they should go nuts in about two minutes (just in time for her encore).

Read the rest of my review for the New York Press here!

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