Image Credit: Vallery Jean/FilmMagic.com
Lauryn Hill’s latest tour, Moving Target, finally made its way to Los Angeles on Monday night, following a weekend appearance at the Coachella Festival in Palm Springs.
The singer hit up downtown’s Club Nokia for a healthy dose of songs pulled from several realms of her musical history, including her time with the Fugees, her Grammy-winning album The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, and even a little tribute to Bob Marley. [Note: The photo shown here isn't of Hill on Monday evening, because press photos were not made available.]
Hill opened her concert—which, despite reports of extreme tardiness in the past, started only about 20 minutes after the scheduled time—by declaring to the crowd: “If it’s okay with you, we’d like to do some classic music.” And classic music she certainly did, launching with her Miseducation hit “Everything Is Everything,” before rolling into Refugee Camp All-Stars’ “Sweetest Thing” and weaving back to Miseducation with “Lost Ones.”
But to be honest, her use of term “classic” should be interpreted loosely, especially when you consider how Hill, wearing an oversized dress and suit jacket, performed the songs. While she certainly sang the lyrics to the aforementioned tunes, they were only recognizable as the songs we’re familiar with at certain, fleeting points. Not that that’s a bad thing—Hill’s voice is still deep and luscious as it ever was but anyone hoping for a tour through the recorded versions of her songs will be sorely disappointed.
