Jewel

From the very beginning of last night's often excellent gig at the Olympia Jewel Kilcher sealed her worth as a singer/songwriter of note with a winning blend of simplicity and eloquence. The Alaskan-born, Grammy-nominated artiste possesses a charm which combines naive cocquetishness and hard-earned experience, and if her set occasionally threatened to fall between the two schools of thought in relation to singer/songwriters (they articulate emotions we ourselves cannot; they bore us to tears with their neuroses), then she managed to accent the positive above and beyond everything else.

She was funny, too, an unusual trait for a generally earnest songwriter (who uses the word "hollow" so much in her songs she should either talk to her analyst about it or buy a thesaurus). For example, she preceded Pieces Of You with a chucklesome story of having once sung the song at a New York-based models convention, in the process caricaturing Alannis Morrisette and being bitchy about Naomi Campbell.

Reference points? She's very much herself, really, but if you like the less strident aspects of Alannis, the touching, honest vulnerability of prime-time Joni Mitchell, and the (rare) hippy-whimsy of Melanie, then this particular Jewel is indeed for you.