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Roskilde fans likely to be Gossip’ing about this one
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July 7th, 2012
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This article is more than 11 years old.
***** (5 stars out of 6): July 6 at Orange, Roskilde Festival
Beth Ditto, the charismatic frontwoman for American band Gossip, revealed her love affair with Denmark last night.
“I love this place with its cute houses, cute cars, and cute little bicycles!” she proclaimed to her Orange stage audience. Ditto repeated the words “tusind tak” throughout her set, and sporadically instructed her adorers to “Skååååål!”
The big and bold singer bounded onto stage barefoot, wearing a clingy black dress that showed off her ample bosom. She danced and jumped around so much that at one point one of her bra cups was fully exposed. “I just have to fix my dress,” she quipped. Ditto even wiped her mouth and sweat using the part of the dress that fell around her décolletage.
Despite the occasional microphone issue, Ditto sang with a power that filled the arena. She sometimes sang a cappella – leaving nothing for her to hide behind. Gossip comprised five members for their live show, and they played a mixture of older and newer pop tunes. Older number ‘8th Wonder’ was loud and fierce, and ‘Get A Job’ was a newer titbit off Gossip’s latest album, A Joyful Noise. Ditto sang a Lady Marmalade intro (“goochie goochie ya ya dah dah”) to ‘Listen Up’ and squeezed a Nirvana (‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’) interlude into ‘Standing In The Way Of Control’.
Ditto progressively lost control as the set list whittled down. Her dark eye-makeup and bluntly styled black hair became increasingly dishevelled as the show went on. Ditto didn’t seem to mind that her hair was stuck to the sweat on her face for most of the performance, and neither did the crowd. Her self-confidence and nonchalance was totally refreshing. She even made a joke about diabetes after telling the crowd that she likes chocolate cake, but doesn’t like strawberry cake. “What’s the Danish word for diabetes?” she asked in her charming American accent.
Ditto was also moved by the orange-vested crowd safety staff who were distributing water to the fans in the pit. She called it “Hydration Station.” She added this goodwill to her list of things she liked about Denmark, and then exclaimed: “I wanna be Danish too!”
Finishing the show with ‘It Takes Two’, Ditto climbed down a ladder mid-song and disappeared from the stage. Even some of the crowd safety staff looked a bit panicked and uncertain of what was going on. Keeping the audience in a state of anticipation, about a minute passed before Ditto came out at the front of the stage barrier to shake hands and kiss the cheeks of her admirers.
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