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Review Tue Oct 17 2006
"You Sounded Better on MySpace"
On her album Alright, Still (more about that here), Lily Allen includes a track -- the cattily titled "Not Big" -- in which she puts down a fella for all manner of inadequacies, merrily singing "how would it make you feel if I said you that you never ever made me come?" Adding insult to injury, she taunts her erstwhile partner with plans to "work her way through all his mates." In other words, this is a girl that knows what she wants and how to get it. Last night at the Double Door, though, not much of that dynamo spunk was on display: although her performance was pleasant enough, Allen came off as bored and unfocused -- which is to say nothing of her band, who stood around chatting most of the time they weren't playing. She seemed to perk up on the occasional chorus; still, it wasn't clear if it was the live Lily who'd had a burst of energy or perhaps a recorded Lily there to lend a helping hand in the background.
Also not clear: whether we were supposed to care. Lily Allen is a one-trick pony, and it's a nice, sometimes clever trick, but there's no apparent substance behind it, and certainly there's no passion. She closed her set with "Alfie," a song indicting the laziness of a brother who can't get out of bed even at "nearly half past three." To her credit, unlike her layabout sibling, Lily Allen showed up. Asking more was obviously asking too much.