Live: Adele at the Hollywood Bowl

"I feel like Beyonce or something!" gushed young English soul singer Adele on Sunday night from the stage of the Hollywood Bowl. "There's so many of you."

Considering her rapid rise to fame, you can understand the feeling. Three years ago, Adele Laurie Blue Adkins was studying music at London's BRIT School for performing arts  and technology; in February she won the Grammy for best new artist.

If we're talking performance style, though, Adele, 21, shares very little in common with the woman occasionally known as Sasha Fierce. Instead of precisely calibrated showbiz sparkle, Adele offers a peek behind the velvet curtain.

Explaining that she'd gotten badly sunburned Sunday afternoon, she admitted that her heavy makeup made her look like a drag queen. And several times she flubbed the lyrics of her songs, then chastised herself for her less than professional memory.

The Week That Will Be (In Shows): Adele, Isis, Phoenix and more

The Veronicas  Unlike the Veronicas' more guitar-centric and sensitive debut, "The Secret Life Of...," "Hook Me Up" details the travails of a vigorous nightlife regimen, and the first twinges that it all might be an empty show. "Untouched" slips from cloying catcalls into a blown-out emo-disco chorus that would leave acres of lip-ringed boys dumbstruck. Music Box @ Fonda,  6126 Hollywood Blvd.,  Hollywood.  8 tonight   $16. (213) 480-3232.

Isis  Isis has always worked in fine lines, particularly the ones between menace and allure, coyness and urgency. Its new album, "Wavering Radiant," is built on moments when a rib-cracking riff dissolves in a well of reverb, then returns as a pulse-quickening melody or a spectral effect.  Music Box @ Fonda,  6126 Hollywood Blvd.,  Hollywood.  8 p.m. Wed.   $16. (213) 480-3232.

From Adele to Death Cab: Musical mixes at the Hollywood Bowl

The venue calls it 'creative packaging,' pairing acts like Death Cab for Cutie and the L.A. Phil; Adele and Etta James; and Grace Jones, Of Montreal and Dengue Fever.

Adele can't contain herself. Nothing new there. The hot young British soul singer is, by her own account, "pretty mouthy." But learning that she will share the bill with her idol, Etta James, at the Hollywood Bowl next Sunday has sent her over the moon.

"It blew my mind," she gushes on the phone from London. "She's the reason I started. The first time I heard her voice, it sucked me in. Made me believe, and made me cry."

James will join Adele thanks to the Bowl's one-up, one-off style of "creative packaging" -- an ambitious, arduous, occasionally nerve-racking attempt to put on shows that go beyond the usual summer fare.

"It's a constant balancing act," says Arvind Manocha, chief operating officer of the Los Angeles Philharmonic Assn., which oversees the Bowl's programming. "Can we find the right pairings? Can we help an artist do something differently? We want concerts that only exist at the Bowl."

That can mean uniting two performers who otherwise might not work together. "Here's a new British artist who loves a legend that we've got a long history with," says Manocha. "We can make it happen for them."

It also means embracing what senior programming manager Johanna Rees calls "our synergistic philosophy -- you know, one plus one equals five," in which genres and generations cross over in hopes of sparking some creative combustion, and big names help new or niche acts fill the 17,000 seats.

Rees already had booked flamboyant, frenetic indie popsters Of Montreal when she heard that eternally flamboyant, chic Grace Jones (who's been emerging from a decades-long hiatus) might be coming to America. To complement this July 26 double bill, she's added Dengue Fever, an L.A.-based hybrid band fronted by Cambodian pop singer Chhom Nimol. "What we always hope for when we put these shows together is a special moment," says Rees. "Artists inspiring each other. Or maybe an artist inspired to do what they don't usually do."

Read more A Hollywood mixing Bowl

Photo credit: Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times

Plant and Krauss, Adele see Grammy bump [UPDATED]

The 2009 Grammy Awards helped give an ailing music business a bit of a Valentine's Day gift. Overall album sales were up more than 16% over last week, reports Billboard's chart guru Keith Caulfield. But despite the brief injection of good news, album sales were still down about 12% over the same week last year.

Benefiting the most from the awards were the album of the year winners Robert Plant and Alison Krauss. The pair's country-tinged "Raising Sand" rocketed up the chart, moving from the No. 69 position all the way to the No. 2 spot. The album sold 77,000 copies this week, according to Billboard. It debuted at the No. 2 slot last year, when it sold 112,000 copies.

Other big Grammy gainers were Coldplay and Adele. The British pop stars moved from No. 31 to No. 8, and sold 62,000 copies. Best new artist winner Adele, meanwhile, moved into the Top 10 on the U.S. pop chart. Her soulful "19" was up from No. 27 after selling 57,000 copies.

Grammy rehearsals: Can Adele conquer her nerves?

Who was the most nervous performer at the Grammy rehearsals this week? It was probably Adele, the 20-year-old British singer whose  "Chasing Pavements" has her up for record of the year and best new artist.

She looked a bit wide-eyed during her stage time earlier this week, and after one run-through of her hit she let out a long sigh. "I messed that one up," she said, although instead of "messed" she used a more pungent word that begins with an F.

Jennifer Nettles of Sugarland went out of her way to provide some supportive, smiley small talk with Adele between takes. The young singer soldiered through. Afterward, though, she zipped out of the Staples Center in downtown Los Angeles, where the Grammys will be held Sunday night, and declined interviews.

"She's just too nervous," explained someone with the production team.

It's going to be worse Sunday night: Instead of empty seats, she'll be singing to U2, Radiohead, Stevie Wonder and Kanye West....

-- Geoff Boucher

Related: British chanteuse Adele's voice belies her age

Related: Grammy countdown: An inside look at rehearsals

Photo: Adele performs at the Musicares tribute to Neil Diamond in Los Angeles on Friday night. Credit: Associated Press

British chanteuse Adele's voice belies her age [UPDATED]

She's only 20, but her smoky voice and mature stylings are winning over American fans.

Adele Laurie Blue Adkins doesn't believe classic soul is necessarily making a comeback -- this despite the fact that she and her countrywoman, Duffy, another artist with a hankering for '60s-inspired R&B, are up for best new artist at next weekend's Grammy Awards. In fact, the 20-year-old, sitting at her room in the London hotel in West Hollywood, dismisses the very concept of retro soul with a wave of her hand and a drag on her cigarette.

She traces her accomplishments to one artist, and one artist only: The 2007 pop music phenomenon Amy Winehouse. "It's good that Duffy and I are doing well, but I think it's part of the Amy thing," Adele said. "The world just wants more Amy."

Such a hypothesis might carry some weight if Adele, who today will perform a sold-out show at the Wiltern, wasn't in many ways the antithesis of Winehouse. There are superficial differences. Winehouse can't stay out of the tabloids, and Adele is terrified of appearing in them, claiming she's giving up the party scene to instead "stay home, watch films and Google myself."

And while Winehouse's thinness is a matter of constant debate, Adele repeatedly has stated that she's perfectly happy with her non-Hollywood curves.

Then there's the music. If Adele gets lumped in with her vintage-loving peers, blame her vocals. While her chain-smoking might come back to haunt her, the young singer can lace a simple acoustic-driven number such as "Best for Last" with an old-soul, nicotine-scratched elegance.

Album review: Franz Ferdinand's 'Tonight: Franz Ferdinand'

Franz Ferdinand might be the only rock band going that can make a tawdry little pickup line like “Kiss me where your eye won’t meet me” into a recurring lyric that shows up in a wan acoustic ballad. The tension between eager warehouse-party groping and frontman Alex Kapranos’ cold shoulders is Franz Ferdinand’s bread and butter, but it’s never been more clear than on “Tonight: Franz Ferdinand,” the Scottish quartet’s third LP.

“Tonight” is the band’s danciest record yet, but it’s the kind of dancing you do after running into an ex at a club and need to prove you’re having more fun than the ex is. “No You Girls,” the band’s best song since “Take Me Out,” gets huge mileage from its swaggering chorus call of “You girls never know how you make a boy feel,” and lead single “Ulysses” uses some nasty Moog stones to underscore walk-of-shame sentiments.

Those waiting for Franz to finally become the post-punk Bee Gees will lap up disco cuts like “Live Alone,” but there’s just enough sulkiness to last a solitary ride home. “I never resort to kissing your photo,” Kapranos sings on “Bite Hard.” “I just had to see how the chemicals taste.” A bit sour maybe, but alluring all the same.

—August Brown

Franz Ferdinand
“Tonight: Franz Ferdinand”
(Domino)
3 stars

Adele really does want a Grammy -- honest

After scoring four Grammy nominations, including one for best new artist, British soul upstart Adele downplayed her chance of winning, telling the British press that she didn't even think she deserved a trophy. But she wasn't setting out to become this year's Grammy bad girl.

Though she may draw from similar music reference points as Amy Winehouse, Adele made it clear this week that unlike last year's best new artist nominee and eventual winner, there won't be any photos of her showing up in the tabloids in the weeks to come. Nor will there be any doubt as to whether or not she'll be appearing at the ceremony Feb. 8.

She'll be there, she says, and yes, she wants a miniature gramophone to take home to England. When she told the BBC that she didn't think she should "get one," and then compared the Grammys to the Oscars, she was only thinking of her career longevity. She wasn't, she promises, dismissing the Grammys when she said, "I don't feel like I need awards."

"The quote that came out on the BBC about the Grammys made it sound like I didn’t want to win a Grammy, and that I didn’t need to win a Grammy," Adele told Pop & Hiss this week. "But what I meant is that a Grammy is like an Oscar. You win an Oscar when you give the performance of your life. I just hope that this isn’t the performance of my life ... I didn’t mean it to sound like I was ungrateful. I don’t need a Grammy to feel good about myself, but I would love a Grammy."

Adele's "19" shot up the charts in the U.S. after she appeared on "Saturday Night Live" this fall, benefiting from singing on the night when Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin guested on the program. Adele has a more singer/songwriter-vibe than country mates Winehouse and Duffy, the latter of which she'll compete with for best new artist.