How to describe the Bobby Conn experience? Less a rock concert than a pageant, Conn’s performance Tuesday at the Hothouse suggested a Jimmy Swaggart telethon crossed with “The Rocky Horror Picture Show.” It was Marilyn Manson with a sense of humor, Burt Bacharach with a blue streak, “MacArthur Park” meets “Springtime for Hitler.”
Backed by a massive, all-star band replete with strings, horns, backup singers and dancers who twisted and writhed like refugees from the X-rated days of Studio 54, Conn was the little big man of the Chicago scene–at least for one night.
The Hothouse was packed with an audience clearly seeking relief from so-bored-to-be-here hipsters. What they got was the diminutive Conn, stripped to his bikini briefs, dancing atop tables while singing about his own inability to grow up (“Baby Man”), the Heaven’s Gate cult suicides (“California”) and the end of the world (“Rise Up”).
“Ladies and gentlemen, this is a sales event . . . of a spiritual nature,” Conn announced, like the self-proclaimed “Judeo-Christian edutainer” he is.
More often than not, Conn’s ambitions outran his abilities. The muddled sound mix failed to convey the layered sophistication of his new album, “Rise Up!,” and his voice was shot by night’s end. But it didn’t matter. If anything, the sight of Conn straining for falsetto notes out of his reach only enhanced the entertain-at-all-costs desperation of this ridiculously ornamented enterprise.
The rhythm section, anchored by the surprisingly fluid funk bass of proto-punk provocateur Weasel Walter and drummer Douglas Walker, nicely negotiated the tempo changes in the multipart compositions. And it was worth the price of admission to observe master improviser Jim O’Rourke as he transformed himself into a rock showman by doing strangulated Joe Cocker screams as a backup singer, making like a Temptation with his dance steps, and toppling amplifiers as he played straight-ahead guitar leads on “United Nations.”
And there was Conn working himself into a lather on “Passover,” his cries expertly mirrored by the violin riffs of his collaborator Monica BouBou. “Passover” recounts the Old Testament plague that befell Egypt, and Conn sang as though he were trolling through the carnage. On his knees, bent at the waist, arms raised–hey, this kid can act.
For the finale of “Rise Up!,” he was Sammy Davis Jr. muttering in the spotlight, “I have forgotten how to dream.” And then the music rescued him from his maudlin rapture. All of a sudden it became the Ike and Tina Turner soul revue, a rampage that kept picking up tempo, Conn caught up in the hysteria, and then breaking free of the spell to breathlessly acknowledge each member of the band.
“My job is to bring you down in the ruin of self-indulgence,” he said, the sweat gleaming from his torso, his little leprechaun shoes glittering in the spotlight.
