Marry me, men shouted

TOUR '99, WTC Harbour Pavilion, Singapore, Wednesday, 3.31.99 By REBECCA LIM

JEWEL sang about her Hands being small. But she did not have any problems holding her audience captive in her first Singapore concert on Wednesday night.

Part of the enthusiasm, one suspects, was sparked off by her radiant looks. When she walked quietly onto the darkened stage at 9.10 pm with the opening number, Near You Always, her hair was clipped back in a fashionably messy bunch. She was togged in a sleeveless, V-necked leather top and stretch, blue slacks, looking clean-cut and alluring.

As the night wore on, she unclipped her hair, only to fasten it back again in a more loosely-secured bundle. Her cherubic face glistened with perspiration, and contorted into a series of pained, emotional expressions as she sang. But she always finished with a wide grin for her crowd.

For two hours, the singer-songwriter from Alaska kept the crowd of more than 3,500 at the Harbour Pavilion enchanted.

She shared pieces of herself in the mellow, folksy tunes from her debut album Pieces Of You and current release Spirit. Her gig of mostly ballads may not have had the audience jumpin' and jivin' but the spirit was soaring all the same.

The crowd cheered each time they recognised the opening bars of her hits: Hands, Foolish Games, You Were Meant For Me and Who Will Save Your Soul.

They loved her. Especially, the men. Throughout, the concert was peppered with shouts from wistful males: "Marry me!" or "Be my wife". Proclamations of "I love you, Jewel!" came from the women too.

For five songs and half an hour, it almost seemed as if she was just going to sing. Then, she offered a sugary "hi" that was met with a warm chorus returning the greeting.

She went on to talk about how she had met her "best friend" -- Steve Poltz, who opened her show with a half-hour set and played acoustic guitar in her backup band -- six years ago, when she was 18. She was a waitress in a cafe and he came in to play gigs.

"Just like Friends, who's the girl?"

"Phoebe," the auditorium answered.

From that moment, her rapport with the crowd was rock-solid. She was a standup comic act with a guitar. She tickled the audience silly with a tale of a songwriting trip with Poltz -- who co-wrote You Were Meant For Me -- that ended up with them joining in a drug bust.

Earlier on, Poltz -- who has a solo album on the Polygram label that is not released in Asia -- had already prepped the crowd for laughs in his opening routine, singing quirky, self-penned tunes on the feelings of a chair and Star Wars.

The crowd liked him obviously, for they obliged when he asked them to yell "huuuhhhh" like the Chewbacca character in the movie.

He and other band members -- Doug Pettibone (guitar), Steve George (keyboards), Brady Blade (drums) and Tony Hall (bass) -- also scored points when they appeared in Chinese suits bought from Chinatown.

But what really pleased the crowd was Jewel coming to the edge of the stage, close to them. At one point, she even stepped off and balanced precariously on a speaker.

"Danger girl, huh?" she asked, pleased with the squeals she evoked.

More than an hour into her gig, she invited members of the audience to leave their seats and flock forward.

"I have a couple of new songs and I want you to tell me what you think," she said.

The two middle-of-the-road rock tunes she belted out sounded like a paler version of Sheryl Crow.

She closed the show at 11.15 pm with the yodelling song her live act is famed for. As she spit out "yo-de-le-yi" faster and faster, the claps and cheers just got louder and louder.

Jewel left Singapore wanting more, and with no doubt that she was the "angel standing by" whom she was singing about.

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