ICONIC. One word. One word only. Grace Jones: model, actress, dancer, singer, artist, anti-racist advocate, rebel, cross-dresser, feminist, impresario, polymath, polyglot and the indisputable Queen of Fashion is both the icon and the iconoclast of our time. Refusing to be boxed into any one label, and responsible for the look and vibe of hundreds of subsequent entertainers, from Madonna to Rihanna, Grace Jones is a tour de force all her own.

With an impressive ten albums over a 45-year run as a musician, (I’m not going to tell you her age—she once told a reporter, “I’m 5,000 years old”), her influence and influences run deep and wide. Deftly borrowing and blending genres such as synth-pop, new wave, reggae, club, funk, rock, gospel, noise and bossa nova like a bee in a floral bed, Jones is a once-in-a-lifetime femme phenom.

Every person at the historic Fox Theater in Oakland on Friday, whether they were donning gold lamè or zebra-pattern sequins, was treated to Jones’ famous sampling of hits from over the years, replete with extravagant costume changes between every song and a dazzling multi-instrumental arrangement of her work. From start to finish, Jones captivated all of us, whether it was her subversively androgynous enacting of Iggy Pop’s “Nightclubbing” and Flash And The Pan’s “Walking In The Rain” from Nightclubbing; the crimson-hued theatrical Parisian avec red wine motif of “I’ve Seen That Face Before (Libertango)”; an electrified “church” of singing “William’s Blood” (Jones even exclaiming “Church! Soul! Spirit! I love it!”), then having the audience sing the hymn, “Amazing Grace” along with her in a tearful testament of communal redemption and forgiveness (Jones was in tears by the end, saying that she would always remember this); the “sin city” of the beyond-entendre “Pull Up To The Bumper”; her deliciously desperate, double-tempo take on Roxy Music’s “Love Is The Drug” (while lasers were diffracted on her disco-ball bowler hat…I know); closing out the night with her famous hula-hooping-in-a-corset “Slave To The Rhythm” herculean feat of strength.

Very few stones were left unturned, very little was left wanting and now we are very much appreciative of her stopping by the East Bay, en route to The Hollywood Bowl. If you don’t know the lore of Grace Jones’ career (google “Grace Jones taxi eggs” for example) and her association with people like Andy Warhol, David Bowie, Helmut Newton, Robert Mapplethorpe and the Paris/New York/LA scene of the 70s and 80s, you A: need to listen to all the albums immediately and B. Pick up a copy of her memoir I’ll Never Write My Memoirs. From Oakland to you, Ms. Jones, thank you.

And thank you to the opening drag queen DJ Juanita More! whose club and techno remixes of classic dance tracks got everyone ready to party their asses off before the show.

Grace Jones Review