Linda Eder

WineGuy and I went to see Linda Eder perform last night. I had seen her perform earlier this year with Michael Feinstein. She was phenomenal that night, and he was fair, although his musicalolgical knowledge of Gerswhiniana is unequalled.

Tonight, however, Eder's performance was quite lacklluster. It felt like she just "phoned it in" from her home. She clearly stated, repeatedly, how much she missed her kid, especially during the holiday season. Her diction was sloppy. Her pitch was quite often flat, and on those atmospherically high notes, that's painful. Her repetoire was boring, filled with blowsy, overdone arrangements of particularly crappy Christmas tunes. Yawn.

We had seats in the third balcony, so we could really see her well. Too well. She came out in some brown jersey beaded gown that either required a seriously fit body or a serious foundation garment. She had neither. She had a thong. I could see the panty lines from my seat. I could see her thighs wiggle and jiggle with every step. It was distracting. It was awful. It was funny! Every time she turned a certain way, I started to giggle. WineGuy kept shooting me nasty looks until I discreetly explained the problem. We couldn't stand it anymore, so we switched seats at intermission. Thankfully, Miss Eder changed her gown, too. We were far enough back in the loge that all we could appreciate was her black gown and her too-white leg through the thigh-high slit.

She finished her performance and gave an obligatory encore. It was a nauseating, over-produced rendition of "Do You Hear What I Hear?" Three bars into the song, we left. We'd had enough.