On May 29, at the Ice Palace, I heard matchless singer Lavinia Draper, in her crazy wig, shades, feather boas, many outfits, and high heels, with faithful DJ RDK, Richard Kennedy, on music, sound, lights, and fog machine, dazzle us, first with a mammoth 11-minute medley, including such songs as “You Don’t Own Me,” “Downtown” or “to/at Ice Palace” or “up the ramp,” “Will You Love Me Tomorrow,” “Be My Baby,” “I Know Something about Love,” “Dancing in the Streets,” and “Knock, Knock, Knock on Wood.”
Lavinia’s marathon continued with “The Big Time,” “Hanky-Panky,” “Mambo Italiano,” the much-too-pertinent “Light My Fire,” “I Just Want to Make Love to You,” “Take Me to the River,” “Zing Went the Strings of My Heart” with dance breaks, “Hound Dog” sung to Peter’s dog Gavin, “Big Spender” sung to Lucy, “Don Juan (your money’s gone),” “You Light Up My Life,” and “Valerie.”
There was another medley—“I Believe in Miracles,” “Bad Girls,” “Ring My Bells,” “Don’t Leave Me This Way,” and “It’s Raining Men”—and then “Let’s Hear It for the Boys” with JD Phoenix and Sean Hargrove joining her on stage, “The Greatest Love of All,” “Edge of Glory,” “Proud Mary,” “River Deep, Mountain High,” “our theme song,” as she put it,“We Belong,” “Shine Bright like a Diamond,” “Find Me Somebody to Love,” and a variation on “Honky-Tonk Woman” as a tribute to Logan Hardcore.
Hear Lavinia at the Ice Palace on Wednesdays at 9 p.m. and Fridays at 7 p.m.