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W E D N E S D AY, J U N E 2 1 , 2 0 0 6Aretha At The ApolloI saw Aretha Franklin at the Apollo last night, thanks to monkeyboysharing an extra ticket with me. Spotted Roger Friedman -- soulafficionado and driving force behind the fine soul documentary OnlyThe Strong Survive -- and felt very plugged in. Never seen the Queen ofSoul in concert before and I've heard for years that she can beindifferent when not in the mood. But the Apollo seemed like the bestbet for a good show and seeing her seemed like the perfect time tomake my first trip to that venue.The crowd was as raucous and responsive as one could hope and theshow featured -- in true Apollo fashion -- introductions of famouspeople in the audience. They'd turn on some SERIOUS white lights andlight up the crowd whenever someone was mentioned. Aretha gave anice intro to Steve Harvey, who hadn't shown up yet and an even moreebullient intro for Rev. Al Sharpton, who clambered on stage and thendid a little dance (quite convincingly) to the delight of the crowd.The show itself? Aretha wasn't quite on auto-pilot but she wasn'ttranscendant either. She opened with "Respect" thankfully, and whilethere are a dozen or so songs you would think she just HAS to do,certainly any very short list would include "Think" and "Chain ofFools," neither of which made an appearance. Aretha did best on theslow groove numbers, scoring terrifically well with "Rock Steady" and atremendous "Dr. Feelgood." She did a gospel number I wasn't toofamiliar with, a civil rights number that bored me and closed with "TheGreatest Love Of All." An attempt to recreate her Grammy triumphwhen she sang an operatic aria fell flat as she cut off notes and basicallyfailed to scale the heights.But overall, she was in good spirits, dressed nicely, and shook hergroove thang enough to dislodge both dangly earrings throughout theshow. (Since she tossed them into the audience as an encore, I'llassume they weren't real diamonds.) I was delighted to see her butfrustrated to realize that if she was focused she could still deliver areally great show from start to finish.POSTED BY MICHAEL IN NEW YORK AT 3:37 PM

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